Department of Justice Opens Criminal Investigation Into Major Airline

Department of Justice Opens Criminal Investigation Into Alaska Airlines Over Catastrophic Door Plug Failure

On Saturday evening, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it had launched a criminal investigation into Alaska Airlines, after a door plug blew off one of its planes midair.

NEW: People are finding debris from the Alaska Airlines flight where the door plug flew off, including a phone that was on and still in airplane mode according to @SeanSafyre.

Insane.

The search for the "door plug" still continues but the National Transportation Safety Board… pic.twitter.com/83CiLjuDLW

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 8, 2024

During a flight in early January, a door plug was blown off of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max, causing cabin depressurization and prompting an emergency landing less than an hour after takeoff. No one was killed in the incident, but a set of unoccupied seats were torn out of the plane from the drastic depressurization. In the aftermath, hundreds of commercial 737 Max-9 planes were grounded.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that passengers and crew from that disastrous flight were contacted by investigators, who are attempting to get to the bottom of the disaster. The DOJ has already interviewed several pilots and flight attendants who were on the plane when the disaster occurred. 

Several passengers aboard the flight have sued Boeing for emotional and physical trauma, claiming that the company “failed to design and/or construct those aircraft safely,” according to court documents. The flight was en route to Ontario, California, from Portland, Oregon, when the incident occurred.

In late January, officials revealed the incident occurred because the door was missing bolts due to an oversight by Boeing employees. Officials believe that Boeing employees either removed the door plug or failed to properly reinstall it when inspected at Boeing’s Seattle-based factory.

Alaska Airlines responded to the DOJ’s investigation in a statement, saying “We are fully cooperating and do not believe we are a target of the investigation.”

Boeing has not yet turned over documentation about the production and installation of the door plug that came detached, the outlet reported. This investigation seeks to answer whether Boeing complied with an earlier settlement resolving another federal probe into the safety of the 737 Max following deadly plane crashes reported in 2018 and 2019.