An Alaska Airlines flight attendant who was on board January’s blowout incident said they wouldn’t feel safe traveling on a Boeing 737 Max.
The unnamed cabin crew member made the statement during an interview as part of the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation. The interview, which took place three days after the incident, was made public last week as part of the NTSB hearing into Flight 1282.
“Just from my personal standpoint and just knowing that was a 10-week-old airplane, right now I do not feel safe getting on the Max,” the flight attendant said.
“How can we know this is not going to happen again and this is safe, because that should not have happened,” they added.
A door plug came off the 737 Max 9 at an altitude of 16,000 feet, causing an uncontrolled decompression before the plane turned around for an emergency landing.
In its preliminary report, the NTSB said the plane left Boeing’s factory missing key bolts that were supposed to secure the door plug.
“All of a sudden, there was just a really loud bang and lots of whooshing air, like the door burst open, it scared the crap out of me,” the flight attendant recounted.
They also recalled fears that passengers could have been sucked out of the hole. There were just seven unoccupied seats on the 178-capacity plane, which included two next to the missing door plug.
Eight people, including one flight attendant, received minor injuries. Boeing also suffered damage from the blowout, with its share price down one-third this year.
Last month, Boeing pleaded guilty to a charge of fraud conspiracy related to the previous 737 Max crisis. It also faces another Justice Department investigation into the Alaska Airlines blowout.
In March, Dave Calhoun became the second successive Boeing CEO to resign over problems with the planemaker’s flagship narrowbody jet.
His successor, Kelly Ortberg, told employees last Thursday: “While we clearly have a lot of work to do in restoring trust, I’m confident that working together, we will return the company to be the industry leader we all expect.”
Boeing and Alaska Airlines did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider outside US working hours.
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