WiFi installation did not involve doors on Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9

As the recent Alaska Airlines incident has captured the attention of the global airline industry, various organizations that worked on the plane have reconsidered whether their work was related to anything near the “plug door.” . Aviation service company AAR, which contracted with the airline to retrofit the 2KU to enable in-flight Wi-Fi, pointed out that no maintenance was performed in that area while the N704AL was on board.

Photo: Joe Kunzler | Simple Flight

November 27th – December 7th

AAR, which spent 11 days maintaining the aircraft to enable in-flight service, noted that its stock price had fallen by as much as 8% by Monday after the incident. This comes after a Deutsche Bank investigation claimed that a particular aircraft was in Oklahoma City on its last day under AAR surveillance and that the emergency exits may have been removed. The DB report states:

AAR denies this, while Deutsche Bank declined to respond to further questions from Reuters.

Photo: Joe Kunzler | Simple Flight

AS1282 details

The aircraft was registered as N704AL and operated flight AS1282 from PDX to Ontario International Airport (ONT) carrying over 170 passengers. The aircraft departed from Runway 28L at 17:07 and rapidly gained altitude, reaching an altitude of over 3,000 feet one minute after takeoff. Two minutes into the flight, the aircraft climbed 5,000 feet above the Columbia River and turned southeast.

Four minutes later, N704AL reached an altitude of 16,000 feet and a speed of 440 miles per hour, before rapidly descending and slowing down. At 10,000 feet the aircraft turned to her PDX and lined up for approach at 17:21. According to FlightAware, the aircraft landed safely on runway 28L at 5:27 p.m.

Alaska Airlines’ nearly brand new aircraft, N704AL, had been in service for less than three months at the time of the incident. Airfleets.net states that the 737 MAX 9 was delivered to Alaska on his October 31, 2023 date. Planespotters.net states that this aircraft entered service on his November 11, 2023 date.

Second largest global grounding in MAX variant

The 737 MAX 9 is the second largest model in the MAX family, following the popular MAX 8 model and preceding the long-awaited MAX 10. In a high-density configuration, MAX 9 can accommodate as many as 215 passengers, but most of them cannot board. The upper limit for capacity is 193 or less.

Photo: NTSB

Eleven airlines currently operate the MAX 9: Aeromexico, Tanzania Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Copa Airlines, Coredon Royal Dutch Airlines, flydubai, Icelandair, Lion Air, SCAT Airlines, Turkish Airlines, and United Airlines. is. According to Cirium, eight out of 11 airlines operate scheduled flights. Chicago-based United Airlines operates the most flights this month with more than 7,000 flights, followed by Seattle-based Alaska Airlines with nearly 3,000 flights.

For major airlines operating the MAX 9, the grounding has made the aircraft unavailable, leading to flight cancellations and network disruptions. For Alaska Airlines, the world’s second-largest MAX 9 operator, its 63 737 MAX 9s account for 20% of its fleet, and as of Saturday, about 160 Alaska Airlines flights had been canceled, resulting in 23,000 passenger losses. Passengers were affected. Similarly, United Airlines canceled more than 100 flights due to the grounding.