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This comes after a portion of the plane blew out during an Alaska Airlines flight.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the U.S. airline regulator has ordered the grounding of some Boeing 737 Max 9 jets.
This comes after a portion of the plane blew out during an Alaska Airlines flight.
The FAA said the inspections would affect 171 planes.
An Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-9 MAX faced an emergency landing after one of its doors blew open mid-air, minutes after take-off on Friday night.
It was learned that the flight was travelling from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California when a portion of the aircraft blew out mid-air. It left Portland International Airport at 4:52 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, returned to Portland and landed safely a little before 5:30 p.m.
CBS News reports that a viral video obtained from social media showed that one of the passenger's window panels was blown out after it reached approximately 16,000 feet about six minutes into the flight before beginning its descent.
The jet had 174 passengers and six crew members aboard.
In a statement obtained by CBS News, Alaska Airlines said that Flight No. 1282 "experienced an incident this evening soon after departure" and "landed safely back" in Portland but did not elaborate.
The pilot radioed the air traffic controller immediately after the event to report that the flight had depressurized.
"We're declaring an emergency,” the pilot was quoted as saying. “We do need to come down to 10,000.”
The US Aviation Administration said in a statement that the crew reported a "pressurization issue." Both the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board said they were launching investigations.
According to the report, CBS News learned that the plane, a Boeing 737-MAX 9, was delivered to the airline in October.
This type of aircraft includes a rear emergency exit door and is primarily utilised by international carriers. It also has a seat design that allows for more passengers aboard the plane. Most commercial aircraft in the United States do not adopt such a structure, instead designing the section to seem like a window from the inside of the aircraft.
In a statement sent to CBS News, Boeing was "working to gather more information" and was in contact with Alaska Airlines.
The airline had also issued a statement to address the issue, noting their plans to ground all of their Boeing 737-9 aircraft for further inspection late Friday.
"At Alaska Airlines, safety is our foundational value and the most important thing we focus on every day. Following tonight's event on Flight 1282, we have decided to take the precautionary step of temporarily grounding our fleet of 65 Boeing 737-9 aircraft," the statement read.
"Each aircraft will be returned to service only after completion of full maintenance and safety inspections. We anticipate all inspections will be completed in the next few days.”
Boeing said it has a technical team standing by to support the investigation. Alaska Airlines issued a statement on Saturday morning saying they've conducted inspections on a quarter of their 737-9 fleet with "no concerning findings."
Aircraft will return to service "as their inspections are completed with our full confidence," the statement said.
Following the incident, Alaska Airlines chartered a replacement flight from Portland to Ontario. Their plane touched down at Ontario International Airport early Saturday, where they reacted to the shocking incident.
Boeing has recently been in the news for the wrong reason following crashes involving its 737 MAX.
A 2022 documentary titled, ‘Downfall: The Case Against Boeing,’ directed by Rory Kennedy examines the tragic incidents.
The documentary features interviews of relevant people, archival footage, and events throughout the history of Boeing that led to the crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, both involving the Boeing 737 MAX.
The incidents occurred within a short period.
The documentary is critical of the company, noting that its competition with Airbus led to the neglect of component failures within the 737 MAX.
Downfall was released on Netflix on February 18 as a Netflix Original Documentary.
The story examines the 2018 and 2019 Boeing 737 MAX incidents, where two airliners crashed killing a combined 346 people.
In March 2019, a Boeing 737-800MAX with registration number ET- AVJ aircraft killed 157 passengers and crew members in a crash shortly after leaving Addis Ababa for Nairobi in Kenya.
A Nigerian professor, Pius Adesanmi, was among the 157 victims of the sad incident.
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