Parts supplier Spirit AeroSystems also affected after US regulators ground 737 Max 9s with door plugs
Shares in aircraft manufacturer Boeing and parts supplier Spirit AeroSystems have fallen amid renewed fears over the safety of its 737 Max planes after an Alaska Airlines flight was forced into an emergency landing on Friday.
Part of the jet’s fuselage that was ripped out in midair was found on Sunday in the back yard of a house in Portland, Oregon.
The plug door – a panel fitted to replace an emergency door in some versions of the 737 Max 9 plane – tore away from the plane soon after it took off from Portland airport for Ontario, California.
US regulators ordered the temporary grounding of all Max 9 models with door plugs pending inspections after Friday’s incident, whose consequences could have been much more severe but for the fact the nearest seats were vacant and passengers were still wearing seatbelts.
The hole in the fuselage was described as being “as wide as a refrigerator” and the wind blowing out of it was so powerful it sucked the shirt off a teenage boy sitting nearby, but the plane managed to land safely with no casualties.
The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has launched an investigation and said the discovery of the missing door plug, which fell near a schoolteacher’s house, would be a “key component”.
