Boeing's 737 MAX reckoning: the door plug blowout and the crash case

On January 5, 2024, a panel covering an unused emergency exit, known as a door plug, blew out of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 shortly after takeoff from Portland, leaving a gaping hole as the pilots made an emergency landing.^[4][21] The FAA grounded the Max 9,^[5] and United Airlines found loose bolts on the plugs of its own jets.^[22] Chief Executive Dave Calhoun called it "our mistake."^[23] The National Transportation Safety Board found that four bolts meant to hold the plug in place were missing,^[24] and the part had been made in Malaysia by Spirit AeroSystems, a key supplier.^[25] The FAA increased oversight of Boeing's production, blocked it from expanding Max output and gave it 90 days to produce a plan to fix its quality problems.^[6][26][27] The Max 9 returned to service later in January,^[28] and Boeing paid Alaska Airlines $160 million in initial compensation.^[29]

The blowout widened into a crisis over Boeing's safety culture. The Justice Department opened a criminal investigation, The Wall Street Journal reported,^[30] and the FBI told passengers they might be crime victims.^[31] John Barnett, a former Boeing employee who had raised concerns about production standards, was found dead in March, and police later concluded that he died by suicide;^[32][33] another whistleblower, a former auditor at Spirit, died weeks later after a brief illness.^[34] The FAA investigated a whistleblower's claims about the 787 and 777,^[35] and at a Senate hearing in June Calhoun apologized to families of crash victims.^[36] Boeing replaced the head of its 737 program, Calhoun announced he would step down, and in July the company named Kelly Ortberg, a former Rockwell Collins chief, to succeed him.^[37][38][7] Boeing also agreed to buy Spirit,^[39] and the NTSB sanctioned it for sharing details of the investigation.^[40]

The blowout reopened the crash case. In May 2024 the Justice Department said Boeing had breached the 2021 agreement,^[41] and in July the company agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud charge, a deal families' lawyers called a "sweetheart" arrangement.^[3] In December a federal judge rejected it, faulting a provision on how an independent monitor would be chosen.^[42] In May 2025 the department reached a new deal allowing Boeing to avoid prosecution,^[8] and in November the judge dismissed the charge.^[10] In civil trials in Chicago, juries awarded $28 million to the family of Shikha Garg and $49.5 million to the family of Samya Stumo, both killed in the Ethiopian crash.^[43][11]

In June 2025 the NTSB blamed Boeing, Spirit and the FAA for the blowout,^[44] and in September the FAA sought $3.1 million in fines from Boeing over safety violations.^[45] The agency's 2026 decisions marked a turn: in July it said Boeing's final safety checks were good enough for the company to resume certifying its 737 Max and 787 planes,^[12] and it then certified the Max 7 and the Max 10, years behind schedule.^[13][14] The 2024 strike by Boeing's machinists is followed in its own arc.