by Lacey Pfalz
Last updated: 8:35 AM ET, Wed June 25, 2025
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has announced that the likely cause of the 2024 incident of a Boeing 737 MAX 9 plane’s mid-exit door plug blowing out in mid-air over Oregon was Boeing’s failure to provide proper training and oversight to its factory workers.
According to the NTSB’s release, the official report will be released in the coming weeks. It accuses Boeing of failing to “provide adequate training, guidance and oversight” in its factories.
The NTSB also accused the FAA of being “ineffective” in ensuring Boeing remained compliant with its parts removal processes. It notes that in the two years before the 2024 accident, Boeing’s voluntary SMS, or safety management system, was inadequate, lacked FAA oversight and didn’t do the job it should have done.
“The safety deficiencies that led to this accident should have been evident to Boeing and to the FAA — should have been preventable,” NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said. “This time, it was missing bolts securing the MED plug. But the same safety deficiencies that led to this accident could just as easily have led to other manufacturing quality escapes and, perhaps, other accidents.”
The incident occurred on January 5, 2024, when Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 took off from Portland, Oregon. It was still ascending into the air when the left mid-exit door plug fell off the plane, causing rapid depressurization. There were seven passengers and one flight attendant injured, and the plane was able to land safely.
Alaska Airlines quickly grounded its fleet of the same plane type after the incident occurred, and passengers onboard the flight filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Boeing.
The plug from the door was found two days later in a Portland neighborhood, without four bolts that were needed to secure the plug to the door. The airplane had just been delivered to the airline three months prior. The door plug had been opened and closed in the Boeing factory in September, 2023, without the specific technicians who are required to open and close the plugs.
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