Boeing, FAA and Spirit under fire from NTSB over Alaska Airlines mid‑air door-plug blowout
June 24, 2025
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has criticised Boeing, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Spirit Aerosystems for “multiple system failures” which led to the Alaska Airlines door-plug blowout in January 2024.
Speaking at a public board meeting on Tuesday, NTSB chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said that the “safety deficiencies that led to this accident should have been evident to Boeing and the FAA”, according to a report of her remarks by CNN.
Focusing in on the FAA, she said: “This isn’t all on Boeing or Spirit.”
“I have lots of questions where the FAA was during all of this,” she added. “The FAA is the absolute last barrier of defence when it comes to ensuring aviation safety.”
FAA, Boeing and Spirit criticised over ‘multiple system failures’
“Since this accident occurred, there’s been a lot of focus on human error, on the actions of one or two individual Boeing employees. Let me be clear. An accident like this does not happen because of an individual or even a group of individuals,” she said.
“Aviation is much more resilient than that. An accident like this only happens when there are multiple system failures.”
On January 5, 2024, Alaska Airlines flight 1282, was forced to return to Portland International Airport after the left mid-exit door plug was blown out of the aircraft at an altitude of about 16,000 feet shortly after departing Portland, Oregon, on a flight destined for Ontario, California.
The incident led to a rapid decompression. Seven passengers and one flight attendant suffered minor injuries.
Homendy said it was “nothing short of a miracle that no one died or sustained serious physical injuries”.
‘Nothing short of a miracle that no one died’
With the latest meeting, the NTSB has sought to determine the probable cause of the in-flight separation of the mid-exit door plug on the Boeing 737-9.
During the meeting, NTSB board members discussed the investigation and voted on the probable cause alongside the safety recommendations designed to prevent similar accidents.
The complete final report will be available in several weeks at ntsb.gov.
Top photo: NTSB investigator Dujuan Sevillian examining the interior side paneling of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, a Boeing 737-9 MAX. Credit: NTSB
