I don’t understand why regulators immediately grounded the Max 9’s, but it took two Max 8 crashes before they were grounded.
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The issue with the Alaska airlines flight resulted from a door plug: an optional covering used instead of a full size exit door if that is not needed for how the airline wants to configure their planes. If the airline wanted a very high passenger density, a door could be necessary there. Otherwise it’s replaced with a plug.
The shorter -8 variant doesn’t have that option: even in it’s most dense configurations, only window exits and the permanent front/rear doors are needed. As such, plugs aren’t needed for that variant, and an issue with those plugs wouldn’t affect them. (The -8-200 variant used by Ryanair could use them if later reconfigured for a less dense layout, but no US airline has ordered that specific variant *edit: a few have, but afaik none have been delivered yet*)
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