Would you fly in a 737 Max 8 right now?

spaminator

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NTSB Chair says systemic failures led to door plug flying off Boeing 737 Max plane midflight
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Josh Funk
Published Jun 24, 2025 • 4 minute read

National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said Tuesday that the heroic actions of the crew aboard Alaska Airlines flight 1282 ensured everyone survived the terrifying incident last year when the door plug panel flew off the plane shortly after takeoff in January of 2024.


But Homendy said “the crew shouldn’t have had to be heroes, because this accident never should have happened” if Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration had done enough to ensure the safety of the Boeing 737 Max plane.


She said the investigation over the past 17 months found bigger problems than just the revelation that bolts securing what is known as the door plug panel were removed and never replaced during a repair because “an accident like this only happens when there are multiple system failures.”

Homendy said Boeing’s new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, has made many improvements in safety since he took the job last summer but more needs to be done. The board is expected to approve several recommendations at Tuesday’s meeting to keep something similar from happening again.


The blow out aboard Alaska Airlines flight 1282 occurred minutes after it took off from Portland, Oregon, and created a roaring air vacuum that sucked objects out of the cabin and scattered them on the ground below along with debris from the fuselage. Seven passengers and one flight attended received minor injuries, but no one was killed. Pilots were able to land the plane safely back at the airport.

Oxygen masks dropped and phones went flying
The accident occurred as the plane flew at 16,000 feet (4,800 meters). Oxygen masks dropped during the rapid decompression and a few cellphones and other objects were swept through the hole in the plane as 171 passengers contended with wind and roaring noise.

The first six minutes of the flight to Southern California’s Ontario International Airport were routine. The Boeing 737 Max 9 was about halfway to its cruising altitude and traveling at more than 400 mph (640 kph) when passengers described a loud “boom” and wind so strong it ripped the shirt off someone’s back.


“We knew something was wrong,” Kelly Bartlett told The Associated Press in the days following the flight. “We didn’t know what. We didn’t know how serious. We didn’t know if it meant we were going to crash.”

The 2-foot-by-4-foot (61-centimeter-by-122-centimeter) piece of fuselage covering an unoperational emergency exit behind the left wing had blown out. Only seven seats on the flight were unoccupied, including the two seats closest to the opening.

Missing bolts put the focus on Boeing’s manufacturing
The panel that blew off was made and installed by a supplier, Spirit AeroSystems. It was removed at a Boeing factory so workers could repair damaged rivets, but bolts that help secure the door plug were not replaced. It’s not clear who removed the panel.


The NTSB said in a preliminary report that four bolts were not replaced after a repair job in a Boeing factory, but the company has said the work was not documented.

Investigators determined the door plug was gradually moving upward over the 154 flights prior to this incident before it ultimately flew off.

Boeing factory workers told NTSB investigators they felt pressured to work too fast and were asked to perform jobs they weren’t qualified for, including opening and closing the door plug on the particular plane involved. Only one of the 24 people on the door team had ever removed one of these plugs before and that person was on vacation when it was done on the plane.

A Boeing door installer said he was never told to take any shortcuts, but everyone faced pressure to keep the assembly line moving.


“That’s how mistakes are made. People try to work too fast,” he told investigators. The installer and other workers were not named in documents about the probe.

Investigators said Boeing did not do enough to train newer workers who didn’t have a background in manufacturing. Many of its workers who were hired after the pandemic and after two crashes involving the 737 Max planes lacked that experience.

But the NTSB staff also told the board Boeing didn’t have strong enough safety practices in place to ensure the door plug was properly reinstalled, and the FAA inspection system did not do a good job of catching systemic failures in manufacturing.

Problems with the Boeing 737 Max
The Max version of Boeing’s bestselling 737 airplane has been the source of persistent troubles for the company since two of the jets crashed, one in Indonesia in 2018 and another in Ethiopia in 2019, killing a combined 346 people.


Investigators determined those crashes were caused by a system that relied on a sensor providing faulty readings to push the nose down, leaving pilots unable to regain control. After the second crash, Max jets were grounded worldwide until the company redesigned the system.

Last month, the Justice Department reached a deal allowing Boeing to avoid criminal prosecution for allegedly misleading U.S. regulators about the Max before the two crashes.

But regulators at the Federal Aviation Administration have capped Boeing’s 737 Max production at 38 jets a month while investigators ensure the company has strengthened its safety practices.

Boeing hired Ortberg last year and created a new position for a senior vice president of quality to help improve its manufacturing.

The company was back in the news earlier this month when a 787 flown by Air India crashed shortly after takeoff and killed at least 270 people. Investigators have not determined what caused that crash, but so far they have not found any flaws with the model, which has a strong safety record.

— Associated Press writer Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, contributed to this report.
 

spaminator

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Boeing settles with Toronto man whose family died in a 737 Max crash in Ethiopia
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Sophia Tareen
Published Jul 12, 2025 • 3 minute read

071225-Boeing-Crash-Lawsuit
This photo taken in Toronto, in Dec. 2018, shows Paul Njoroge, his wife, Carolyne, and three small children, Ryan, age 6, Kellie, 4, and infant Rubi, along with Njoroge's mother-in-law, Anne Wangui Karanja. (Clifford Law Offices via AP) AP
CHICAGO (AP) — Boeing reached a settlement Friday with a Canadian man whose wife and three children were killed in a deadly 2019 crash in Ethiopia, averting the first trial connected to a devastating event that led to a worldwide grounding of Max jets.


The jury trial at Chicago’s federal court had been set to start Monday to determine damages for Paul Njoroge of Toronto. His family was heading to their native Kenya in March 2019 aboard Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 when it malfunctioned and plummeted to the ground. The wreck killed all 157 people on board.


Njoroge, 41, had planned to testify about how the crash affected his life. He has been unable to return to his family home in Toronto because the memories are too painful. He hasn’t been able to find a job. And he has weathered criticism from relatives for not traveling alongside his wife and children.

“He’s got complicated grief and sorrow and his own emotional stress,” said Njoroge’s attorney, Robert Clifford. “He’s haunted by nightmares and the loss of his wife and children.”


Terms of the deal were not disclosed publicly.

Clifford said his client intended to seek “millions” in damages on behalf of his wife and children, but declined to publicly specify an amount ahead of the trial.

“The aviation team at Clifford Law Offices has been working round-the-clock in preparation for trial, but the mediator was able to help the parties come to an agreement,” Clifford said in a statement Friday.

A Boeing spokesperson said via email Friday that the company had no comment.

Boeing Crash Lawsuit
Paul Njoroge testifies during a House Transportation subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 17, 2019, on aviation safety. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
The proceedings were not expected to delve into technicalities involving the Max version of Boeing’s bestselling 737 airplane, which has been the source of persistent troubles for the company since the Ethiopia crash and one the year before in Indonesia. A combined 346 people, including passengers and crew members, died in those crashes.


In 2021, Chicago-based Boeing accepted responsibility for the Ethiopia crash in a deal with the victims’ families that allowed them to pursue individual claims in U.S. courts instead of their home countries. Citizens of 35 countries were killed. Several families of victims have already settled. Terms of those agreements also were not made public.

The jetliner heading to Nairobi lost control shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport and nose-dived into a barren patch of land.

Investigators determined the Ethiopia and Indonesia crashes were caused by a system that relied on a sensor that provided faulty readings and pushed the plane noses down, leaving pilots unable to regain control. After the Ethiopia crash, Max jets were grounded worldwide until the company redesigned the system.


This year, Boeing reached a deal with the U.S. Justice Department to avoid criminal prosecutions in both crashes.

Among those killed were Njoroge’s wife, Carolyne, and three small children, Ryan, age 6, Kellie, 4, and Rubi, 9 months old, the youngest to die on the plane. Njoroge also lost his mother-in-law, whose family has a separate case.

Njoroge, who met his wife in college in Nairobi, was living in Canada at the time of the crash. He had planned to join his family in Kenya later.

He testified before Congress in 2019 about repeatedly imagining how his family suffered during the flight, which lasted only six minutes. He has pictured his wife struggling to hold their infant in her lap with two other children seated nearby.

“I stay up nights thinking of the horror that they must have endured,” Njoroge said. “The six minutes will forever be embedded in my mind. I was not there to help them. I couldn’t save them.”
 

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Families of Boeing crash victims to make potential final plea for criminal prosecution
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Jamie Stengle And Rio Yamat
Published Sep 03, 2025 • 4 minute read

Clariss Moore of Toronto, holds a photo of her deceased daughter Danielle as she talks with Susan Riffel, who also also lost sons Melvin and Bennett is Boeing crash, before a hearing at federal court in Fort Worth, Texas, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025.
Clariss Moore of Toronto, holds a photo of her deceased daughter Danielle as she talks with Susan Riffel, who also also lost sons Melvin and Bennett is Boeing crash, before a hearing at federal court in Fort Worth, Texas, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025. Photo by LM Otero /AP Photo
DALLAS — Families of some of the 346 people killed in crashes of Boeing 737 Max jetliners held photos of their dead loved ones Wednesday outside a federal court in Texas, where a judge is hearing arguments on the U.S. government’s motion to dismiss a felony conspiracy charge against the aerospace company in connection with the twin disasters.


U.S. District Chief Judge Reed O’Connor set aside time for relatives of the crash victims to speak during the hearing. Some travelled from countries in Europe and Africa to pursue what could be their final opportunity to demand that the company face criminal prosecution for the crashes off the coast of Indonesia and in Ethiopia.


“My daughter died on a new airplane that was defective and that was in operation because they weren’t complying with regulations and because of fraud,” said Nadia Milleron, a Massachusetts resident whose 24-year-old daughter, Samya Stumo, was among the 157 passengers and crew members killed in the Ethiopia crash. “I don’t want any other any other family member to lose their loved ones because of this kind of fraud.”


In charging Boeing with conspiracy to defraud the government, prosecutors alleged Boeing deceived Federal Aviation Administration regulators about a flight-control system that was later implicated in the fatal flights, which happened less than five months apart in 2018 and 2019.

The hearing in Fort Worth comes more than four years after the Justice Department announced it had charged Boeing and reached a $2.5 billion settlement with the aircraft maker. That deal would have protected Boeing from criminal prosecution if it strengthened its ethics and legal compliance programs. Prosecutors revived the charge last year after deciding the company had violated certain terms of the agreement.

Boeing decided to plead guilty as part of a new agreement, but O’Connor rejected the deal in December. O’Connor, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, cited concerns he had over how diversity policies both at the federal government and at Boeing could influence the selection of an independent monitor charged with overseeing the company’s promised reforms.


The judge’s refusal to accept the plea agreement meant the company was free to challenge the Justice Department’s rationale for charging Boeing as a corporation. It also meant prosecutors would have to secure a new deal for a guilty plea, and they spent six months renegotiating with Boeing.

In late May, the two sides struck a non-prosecution agreement that took both the criminal charge and Boeing’s guilty plea off the table. In exchange, Boeing said it would pay or invest another $1.1 billion in fines, compensation for the crash victims’ families, and internal safety and quality measures.

The Justice Department said it offered those terms in light of “significant changes” Boeing has made to its quality control and anti-fraud programs since last summer. It said the certainty of the agreement also served the public interest more effectively than taking the long-running case to trial and risking a jury verdict that might spare the company further punishment.


Chris and Clariss Moore of Toronto, whose 24-year-old daughter, Danielle, also died when a 737 Max crashed shortly after takeoff from Ethiopia’s Addis Ababa Bole International Airport, said in a statement that the pending agreement would allow Boeing to escape justice.

“The safety of passengers will be held in the balance,” the statement said.

Nearly 100 families oppose the agreement and want the judge to appoint a special prosecutor to take over the case since the Justice Department said it would not move forward with the charge even if O’Connor refuses to dismiss it, according to court documents.

Justice Department lawyers said the families of 110 crash victims either support resolving the case before it reaches trial or do not oppose the new deal. The Justice Department has asked the judge to leave open the possibility of refiling the conspiracy charge if the company does not hold up its end of the deal over the next two years.


While federal judges typically defer to the discretion of prosecutors in such situations, court approval is not automatic.

The yearslong case centers around a software system that Boeing developed for the Max, which began flying in 2017.

In the 2018 and 2019 crashes, that software pitched the nose of the plane down repeatedly based on faulty readings from a single sensor, and pilots flying then-new planes for Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines were unable to regain control. After the Ethiopia crash, the planes were grounded worldwide for 20 months while the company redesigned the software.

Investigators found that Boeing did not inform key Federal Aviation Administration personnel about changes it had made to the software before regulators set pilot training requirements for the Max and certified the airliner for flight.

Acting on the incomplete information, prosecutors said, the FAA approved minimal, computer-based training for Boeing 737 pilots, avoiding the need for flight simulators that would have made it more expensive for airlines to adopt the latest version of the jetliner.

The initial 2021 settlement agreement was on the verge of expiring last year when a panel covering an unused emergency exit blew off a 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight over Oregon. No one was seriously injured, but it put Boeing’s safety record under renewed scrutiny.