Alaska Airlines canceled 97 flights around the country on Saturday after announcing the temporary grounding of its fleet of Boeing 737 MAX 9s.
The grounding follows a serious incident on an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 on Friday evening, when a piece of the fuselage blew out at 16,000 feet, leaving a large hole and decompressing the passenger cabin.
The plane departed from Portland and made an emergency landing there 20 minutes after taking off. The flight had been destined for Ontario, Calif.
All 171 passengers and six crew were safe, with some minor injuries, Alaska said. No passenger was seated by the opening.
The 97 canceled flights represent 13% of Alaska's scheduled flights, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. An additional 60 Alaska flights were delayed as of 9 a.m. Saturday.
Of those routes, 24 Alaska flights out of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport were canceled Saturday as of this writing, according to FlightAware.
Husky fans trying to get to Houston for Monday's national championship football game appear to have been spared, as of now. No flights from Seattle to Houston were listed among the cancellations as of Saturday morning.
A flexible travel policy is in place for Alaska customers, allowing passengers to change or cancel their trips without a fee. In online instructions to passengers, the airline says that it will move them to the next available flight if their flight was canceled. Otherwise, they can change their flight to another one up to three days earlier or later, cancel their trip online and receive travel credit, or contact the airline to cancel their trip and receive a refund.
In a statement, Alaska Air Group CEO Ben Minicucci said the airline's fleet of 65 MAX 9s would be grounded and inspected to ensure safety. He anticipated that inspections would be complete in the next few days.
"Each aircraft will be returned to service only after completion of full maintenance and safety inspections," Minicucci said. "I am personally committed to doing everything we can to conduct this review in a timely and transparent way."
Just before 9 a.m. Saturday, Alaska posted on the social media platform X that inspections "on more than a quarter" of the MAX 9s were complete "with no concerning findings."
The National Transportation Safety Board said Saturday morning that a team would arrive on scene later in the day, including experts in structures, operations and systems.
Data from Friday's flight provided by FlightAware shows that after climbing to an altitude of 16,000 feet some six and a half minutes into the flight, with the plane traveling at a speed of 444 miles per hour, the pilot descended rapidly.
It appears that's the moment when the plug blew out and passengers saw a gaping hole, felt a rush of air leaving the cabin, and saw oxygen masks drop from the ceiling.
"It was deathly silent" aboard the plane, said 29-year-old passenger Kyle Rinker in a text message to The Oregonian/OregonLive. "Nobody made a noise. You could feel the plane shake a little because of the air pressure difference."
The FlightAware data shows the crew descended to 10,000 feet within four minutes, then turned back toward Portland and continued their descent.
In a statement, Boeing said it is working to gather more information and that its technical team is ready to support the investigation.
The 737 MAX is the latest version of Boeing's signature narrowbody jetliner. Alaska had recently transitioned to an all-Boeing fleet and relies heavily on the MAX, which has been in service since 2017 and has accumulated over 6.5 million flight hours globally. (The airline's recent $1.9 billion proposed purchase of Hawaiian Airlines would add Airbus planes to its roster.)
After MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019, all versions of the plane were grounded. The investigation that followed showed that a flawed flight control system in the plane was the primary cause of both tragedies.
In late December, Boeing informed airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration of a possible loose bolt in the rudder control system of Boeing 737 MAX airplanes and required inspections of specific tie rods that control rudder movement for possible loose hardware.
Friday's emergency landing was Alaska Air Group's second recent, significant flight safety incident that ended with a plane landing at Portland's airport.
In October, an Alaska-owned Embraer E175 jet operated by its regional carrier Horizon Air diverted to Portland after authorities say an off-duty Alaska Airlines pilot attempted to shut off the plane's engines. The Alaska Airlines pilot, who was riding in a jump seat on the flight deck, currently faces state and federal charges related to the incident.
