The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced in the last few hours that the two main American airlines operating B-737 Max 9 aircraft have inspected almost 94% of these planes in their fleets. There were 171 aircraft of this type grounded after the plane crash on January 5th, when a plug door exploded in flight on an Alaska Airlines plane.

Last January 24, American skies regulators revoked the grounding of the Max 9, announcing that they could only fly again after the end of technical inspections by experts. Now the FAA has announced that 78 of the 79 United Airlines planes and 57 of the 65 Alaska Airlines MAX 9 have been inspected and returned to service.

The checks required by the US authority include: examination of the specific bolts of the plug door; the guide rails and the tailgate fittings; detailed visual inspections of dozens of associated components. Meanwhile, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) continues its investigation to understand whether the panel fastening bolts were missing on board the Alaska Airlines plane.

On the same topic, see also the article published by AVIONEWS.