The National Transportation Safety Board concluded its investigation Tuesday into a harrowing flight last year in which a door plug flew off a plane while climbing after takeoff, sucking objects out of the cabin nearly 15,000 feet above the ground.
NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy credited the heroism of the crew aboard Alaska Airlines flight 1282 for preventing any fatalities.
“The actions of the captain, the first officer, four flight attendants, and air traffic controllers on duty that day were nothing short of heroic,” she said.
Investigators concluded that the door panel on the newly manufactured Boeing 737 Max 9 had been removed to repair rivets on the frame of the plug. When Boeing personnel replaced the plug, four bolts, known as “vertical movement arrestor” bolts, were not reinstalled.
As a result, the door plug was “displaced incrementally,” the NTSB said, slowly inching upwards on every flight leading up to its eventual catastrophic failure.
