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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This failure was undoubtedly caused by a mechanical failure, so the fleet was grounded for inspections. The earlier crashes needed analysis to determine the root cause of the crash.
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*)
There was disagreement (and considerable pushback from Boeing) about whether the first Max 8 crash was due to a design flaw or pilot error. It wasn’t until the second crash that it became irrefutable that there was a catastrophic flaw in the software.
With the Max 8 crash, it wasn’t immediately obvious that the issue was with the planes design/software.
With the Max 9, they have pressure from the Max 8 crashes as well as what is very obviously a hardware issue.
After the first MAX8 crash, Boeing pushed HARD that it was the pilots fault and not a technical issue with the plane because at the time, nobody even knew about MCAS or what caused the crash. Even after the second crash they tried to blame the pilots until it was eventually proven to be an issue with the plane. At which point Boeing had already developed a “software solution”. So basically the FAA just believed Boeing and it took President Trump and an _executive order_ to ground the planes in the US
Boeing blamed pilot error on the earlier crashes caused by MCAS runaway trim. It took time before the FAA realized Boeing was requiring only the skimpiest of training on the system (to preserve the “same type rating”) so this “pilot error” was going to be endemic and not a one-off.
But there’s zero doubt that this recent problem is a mechanical problem that cannot possibly be pilot error. There is no way for a pilot to command that plug to open. If it opens, it’s because something is built wrong or maintained wrong.
And the likelihood of it being the airline’s maintenance’s fault after purchase is low because this is a rather new plane that hasn’t been in the airline’s hands for more than a few months.
So it’s *very* likely that something was done wrong in manufacturing or designing the plane. The purpose of the grounding and inspections is to find out if it’s a problem across all the planes or a problem on just this one plane.
This is like asking why was a 2023 honda recalled, but the 2018 wasn’t?
They may look similar, but they are very different.
There was a good amount of speculation after the first Max 8 crash that it was the result of pilot error, but after the 2nd crash it became clear there was an issue with the aircraft, so it was grounded.
With the Max 9 it was very clear it wasn’t a pilot error issue and a malfunction of the aircraft, so they were grounded sooner.
The door that blew off is literally walled off in the type of configuration Alaska is using. The door is available if an airline wants/needs it, but the way Alaska set up the cabins in the ones they had shipped to them they didn’t want or need that door. So it was bolted shut and the cabin wall was installed with no door access from the inside.
That means what happened was either sabotage or a mechanical problem, and may impact any planes built to the same cabin configuration as only the paint would change (and not the bolts and stuff). There was simply no way a person could have been screwing around while the plane was in flight and done something that would blow out a door to which they had no access, it can’t be crew error. The door is not able to be opened by a computer (though there may be sensors telling the computer if the door is open or closed). Therefore it is not a computer problem. That leaves only a physical problem with the airframe itself, a mechanical issue.
The only way to find out whether this was a one-off freak incident or something widespread (for instance, a batch of bad bolts from the bolt maker) is to take every plane in the entire fleet apart and look for instances of the same problem, which means grounding the fleet. And to that end — at least five more instances of the same problem have been found that would have happened eventually with more likely to be announced as the inspections continue.
The others you are asking about were a software issue that was initially blamed on pilot error, and pilot error is a training problem that doesn’t generally require grounding an entire fleet. For pilot training you require more hours craft-specific hours with a training pilot on board and/or time in a flight simulator (also configured for the specific aircraft). Once it was realized that the problem was in the airplane and not the pilots, the fix/grounding order was issued.
The longer Max 9 has the door plug (In some configurations), and the Max 8 being shorter does not. The door plug is where the failure occurred.
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