Some passengers onboard Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 have filed a class-action lawsuit against Boeing after a door plug blew out of a 737 MAX 9 aircraft operated by Alaska Airlines on Jan 5 as it was climbing out of Portland International Airport en route to Ontario, California.
The aircraft depressurized and pilots returned to Portland and made an emergency landing.
Stritmatter Kessler Koehler Moore, trial attorneys out of Seattle who have sued on behalf of Black Lives Matter rioters and the like, filed the class-action lawsuit against the Boeing Company on behalf of six passengers on Flight 1282.
Daniel Laurence from The Stritmatter Firm stated at the company’s blog, “The NTSB has yet to pinpoint an exact root cause of Flight 1282’s alarming decompression. But given Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun’s forthright admission that this terrifying event was caused by Boeing’s ‘mistake’ (a soft take on its apparent negligence), our passenger clients elected to file suit as soon as possible in order to seek fair compensation for their injuries and those of all other passengers, spouses, and registered domestic partners, as soon as reasonably possible. Unfortunately, although everyone is glad that the blow-out occurred while the crew could still manage to land the aircraft safely, this nightmare experience has caused economic, physical and ongoing emotional consequences that have understandably deeply affected our clients, and is one more disturbing black mark on the troubled 737-MAX series aircraft.”
The litigants seek compensation for injuries and trauma sustained on the flight, including many who said they had difficulty breathing and ear bleeds, and some reporting that the oxygen masks did not all seem to work properly.
Alaska Airlines has refunded the tickets of the passengers and awarded each of them $1,500 for their discomfort and trauma.
On Thursday, the Federal Aviation Administration opened a new investigation into Boeing’s role in the incident to determine if the company had complied with regulatory standards for safety. The fuselage of the jet is built for Boeing by a subcontractor, Spirit AeroSystems, which also installed the fuselage part on the new 737 MAX 9 jets.
Spirit AeroSystems has a fuselage plant in Wichita, Kansas, although the door plug that blew out was made in Malaysia. It is a company that has a record of focusing on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion — DEI — and is now getting a lot of attention for its hiring focus.
U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat and chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, sent a letter to the FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker on Thursday demanding more information about Boeing and “Specifically regarding Spirit AeroSystems, please provide the Committee with an explanation of FAA’s oversight of Spirit’s production system and of FAA’s oversight of Boeing’s supplier control system as it relates to Spirit. Please identify what, if any, improvements in oversight by FAA that you intend to implement to ensure that Spirit’s future performance meets all FAA regulatory requirements.”
Cantwell has asked for last two years of notices of FAA quality-control audits related to Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems.
On Friday, the FAA said it was increasing its oversight and auditing of Boeing’s 737 MAX 9 production line and suppliers.
