United Airlines finds loose bolts on grounded Boeing 737 Max 9 jetliners

United Airlines said that it has found loose bolts while inspecting its Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft fleet, days after a door plug blew out on a similar Alaska Airlines jet during a flight on Friday.

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During United Airlines’ preliminary inspections of its Max 9 fleet, the company found “instances that appear to relate to installation issues in the door plug,” KIRO-TV reported.

“For example, bolts that needed additional tightening,” Chicago-based United Airlines said in a statement on Monday.

The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all 737 Max 9s after the Alaska Airlines incident, ABC News reported.

United has 79 Boeing 737 MAX 9s in its fleet, according to KIRO. The air carrier did not say how many of those jets had issues with loose bolts, ABC News reported.

Alaska Airlines has 64 other Max 9s, according to the Chicago Tribune. No other U.S. airlines operate that model of the Boeing 737, the newspaper reported.

In a statement, the FAA said that its first priority “is keeping the flying public safe.”

“We have grounded the affected airplanes, and they will remain grounded until the FAA is satisfied that they are safe,” the agency said.

On Monday, officials with the National Transportation Safety Board shared images showing investigators examining a door plug from Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 that was found in a backyard near Portland, Oregon.

The Boeing jetliner that had the inflight blowout over Oregon was not being used for flights to Hawaii, The Associated Press reported. That decision came after a warning light that could have indicated a pressurization problem lit up on three different flights.

According to the Tribune, shares of The Boeing Co. fell 8% and those of Spirit AeroSystems, which builds the fuselage for Boeing’s 737 Max, dropped 11% on Monday, the first day of trading since the incident occurred.

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NTSB investigates after door plug blown off Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 In this National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) handout, oxygen masks hang from the fuselage as members of the NTSB examine Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, a Boeing 737 Max 9, on Saturday, Jan. 7, 2024 in Portland, Oregon. A door-sized section near the rear of the plane blew off 10 minutes after Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 took off from Portland, Oregon on January 5 on its way to Ontario, California. (Handout/NTSB via Getty Images)

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