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SEATTLE, WA – June 24, 2025 – Today’s NTSB hearing on the Alaska Flight 1282 in-flight door mid-exit plug blowout did not fully answer important questions about what the airline may have known before then. The NTSB concludes that a Cabin Pressure Controller warning light microchip caused multiple warnings because it intermittently failed. However, attorneys for the passengers are pointing out that the facts related to those warnings remain unresolved.
Pressure controller warnings occurred on three flights shortly before the left mid-exit door plug exploded out of Alaska Flight 1282. The NTSB found that before the door plug incident, Alaska Airlines had discovered repeated failures in a faulty fuel pump on that aircraft but chose to defer the maintenance and fly it anyway. For that reason, the FAA had prohibited the aircraft to be flown in extended-range operations (so-called “ETOPS”), so it could be closer to a landing field if something went wrong in flight; a restriction the NTSB characterized as unrelated to the Cabin Pressure Controller warnings.
Attorney Daniel Laurence of Stritmatter Law said, “The NTSB generally does a good job. But it often does not answer important questions victims of air crashes have, because they are not allowed to be part of the investigation. After the initial NTSB hearing in August 2024, I asked NTSB Jennifer Homandy about the repeated pressure warning lights. Obviously, a leaky door plug over the 154 prior flights of that aircraft could challenge the Cabin Pressure Controller. She acknowledged a loose door plug could cause pressure changes. But nearly a year later, the NTSB finding is the same as her answer was then – that the warnings were caused by a microchip failure unrelated to the door plug. The NTSB finding that both the main pressure controller and backup were working with no faults identified post-incident seems odd in light of the fact that it was throwing off warnings.”
Laurence has questions for Alaska Airlines. They include:
- Was the chip responsible for the initial warning left in place while the aircraft was repeatedly flown, such that the same chip triggered each warning? Or was it replaced once, twice or three times before the door plug incident?
- The warning light illuminates under various conditions, which include power loss, wiring failures, other component failures or when the pressure differential or rate of pressure change is too high. Was the microchip on the 737-9 MAX flown as Flight 1282 itself faulty (it came from a lot of microchips that had 10 others on other aircraft that had shown a similar fault code sequence between January 2021 and December 2023)? Did it fail due to another cause, such as air conditioning settings, or using “no bleed” takeoff procedures or a cabin pressure leak?
- Why was the warning light illuminated with increased frequency merely days before the door plug blew out?
- Alaska Airlines identified repeat failures of a fuel pump failure but flew the plane anyway, so FAA regulations required the airline to restrict the plane from ETOPS flights. Did the repeated Cabin Pressure Controller warnings also require such a restriction?
- What does the airline know about the rumor that there was an in-flight whistling noise in the cabin before the flight on which the door plug blew out?
Stritmatter Law represent 51 passengers and family members who filed a lawsuit against Boeing, SpiritAero Systems and Alaska Airlines, arising from the Boeing 737-9 MAX that lost its left mid-exit door plug in flight on January 5, 2024. Legal Team: Karen Koehler, Andrew Ackley, Dan Laurence, Melanie Nguyen, Deb Silberman. Paralegal: Patti Sims
Stritmatter Law is a nationally recognized law firm based in Seattle and Hoquiam, Washington. With a team of 16 dedicated attorneys, the firm prides itself on representing victims of wrongful death, serious personal injuries, and civil rights violations.