The Troubled History of Boeing’s 737 Max Jet

The Federal Aviation Administration has temporarily grounded some Boeing 737 Max 9 jets pending safety inspections, after a “door plug” panel blew off the body of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in midair on Friday, Jan. 5, forcing an emergency landing in Portland, OR. No serious injuries have been reported.

“Safety is our top priority and we deeply regret the impact this event has had on our customers and their passengers,” Boeing said in a statement on Saturday. “We agree with and fully support the FAA’s decision to require immediate inspections of 737-9 airplanes with the same configuration as the affected airplane.”

The incident, which is currently under investigation, brings fresh scrutiny to Boeing, coming less than five years after the aircraft manufacturer’s 737 Max passenger jets were grounded by the FAA following two 737 Max 8 plane crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.

In the September 2021 documentary Boeing’s Fatal Flaw, FRONTLINE and The New York Times investigated how market pressures, corporate culture and failed regulatory oversight ushered a plane with a fatal design flaw into commercial service — and examined the human toll.

Stream the documentary now for the story of a catastrophic crisis for one of the world’s most iconic industrial names that prompted the grounding of 737 Max planes globally from March 2019 to December 2020, and explore updates on what’s happened since.

Watch Boeing’s Fatal Flaw at pbs.org/frontline, in the PBS App and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel.