FAA Forms inspection teams to scan data from the affected Aircraft,

 I will be going out of town for a week so I will be "out of pocket" as they say, and I won't be able to check anything until Monday.  The spousal Unit and I are going on a cruise and it will be warmer than it is here,,,so I am excited :)

Credit: Alaska Airlines

Data from 40 Boeing 737-9 door plug assembly inspections conducted by Alaska Airlines and United Airlines is in the hands of an FAA team of subject-matter experts tasked with determining whether the work is sufficient to clear grounded aircraft for revenue service.

The 40 checks, done in recent days based on a preliminary set of Boeing instructions, will be reviewed by FAA experts with specific knowledge of the plug door, its potential hazards, and broader maintenance practices, sources with knowledge of the process told Aviation Week.

Neither the FAA nor Boeing will discuss the process or speculate on how long the inspection review will take.

Alaska and United have 65 and 79 door plug-equipped 737-9s on the ground following a Jan. 5 inflight loss of a plug from an Alaska 737-9. Alaska pulled its aircraft immediately after the occurrence, while the FAA ordered the affected fleet grounded via a Jan. 6 emergency airworthiness directive (AD).

Complying with the AD’s order to inspect and correct any issues requires FAA-approved instructions from Boeing. The 40 checks are FAA’s first step in a deliberate process to determine what operators must do to ensure affected 737-9s are safe.

The NTSB is investigating the Jan. 5 occurrence onboard Alaska Flight 1282 in which the left-side mid cabin exit door plug tore free as the 737-9 was climbing out of Portland, Oregon. The crew immediately declared an emergency and returned to Portland. None of the 176 occupants reported serious injuries.

The plug’s separation caused an immediate depressurization of the cabin and significant damage to interior parts, such as seats and seat frames, the NTSB said. No structural damage was reported.

Investigators have not officially linked the Alaska occurrence to problems subsequently found on other aircraft, including loose hardware, during preliminary post-grounding inspections. But statements by the FAA and Boeing suggest supply chain missteps linked to preliminary inspection findings, including non-conforming work at fuselage manufacturer Spirit AeroSystems and gaps in Boeing’s quality assurance process, likely contributed to Flight 1282’s emergency.

The FAA’s review will cover immediate actions needed to ensure the plug assemblies—which cover exit door gaps cut into every 737-9 fuselage that are not needed for lower-capacity seating configurations—meet Boeing’s approved design standards. The agency is also expected to review the door plug design to determine if any changes are needed to mitigate risks spotlighted by Flight 1282.

Broader reviews of 737-9 production and Boeing’s supply chain oversight are also underway. Boeing said it is working to identify any problems linked to the door plug issue or other production quality shortcomings.

FAA Grounds a bunch of B737-9 series of Aircraft

Word on the street is that "Spirit_AeroSystems", is having a lot of quality control issues relating to labor unrest, and this is biting Boeing in the tushie right now.

I got this article from a 3rd party email from work.

A photo released by NTSB shows the Alaska Airlines 737-9 missing the fuselage plug and window section in the deactivated left-hand mid-emergency door.

Credit: NTSB

The FAA has ordered immediate inspections of certain Boeing 737-9s following the Jan. 5 inflight loss of an insert covering a door-sized space in the fuselage for an optional emergency exit during an Alaska Airlines flight.

Meanwhile, the door "plug" that detached from the aircraft has been found as part of an investigation into the incident, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said Jan. 7. In a late briefing Homendy said NTSB is looking into an auto-pressurization fail light on board that had illuminated three times in recent weeks.  

A Jan. 6 emergency airworthiness directive (EAD) orders immediate inspections of aircraft with the inserts, or plugs, that deactivate the exits. The EAD provides few details on the issue or its cause. It says the mandatory checks are necessary following "a report of an in-flight departure of a mid-cabin door plug, which resulted in a rapid decompression of the airplane."

Credit: NTSB

The FAA in a statement said the EAD covers 171 of the 218 737-9s delivered by Boeing to date. The checks apply to 737-9s with plugs that have not yet reached 4,000 cycles, sources with knowledge of the issue tell Aviation Week. The cycle limit is linked to a threshold for routine inspections of the affected area, the sources said.

Inspections will take up to 8 hr. per aircraft, the agency said.

Boeing is developing recommended inspection protocols to comply with the directive. Once the agency reviews and approves them, operators can start inspecting aircraft, United Airlines said in a Jan. 7 update. United said it is preparing for the checks by removing interior panels to prepare aircraft for checks. United has 79 737-9s and all of them need the checks.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency immediately adopted FAA's directive for affected European aircraft.

“The FAA is requiring immediate inspections of certain Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes before they can return to flight,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said.

Boeing in a statement said it supports the FAA's decision "to require immediate inspections of 737-9 airplanes with the same configuration as the affected airplane."

Alaska opted to ground and inspect its entire Boeing 737-9 fleet following the Jan. 5 occurrence, which took place on a flight from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California.

Flight 1282 departed at 4:52 p.m. PST.  About 10 min into the flight as the aircraft was climbing through FL160 (16,000 ft.), a fuselage "plug" covering the gap where an optional emergency exit fits broke free. The aircraft experienced a rapid decompression. The flight crew declared an emergency and returned to Portland where the aircraft, with 171 passengers and six crew, landed safely.

NTSB Update

In weekend briefings Homendy confirmed the basic event timeline and provided a few new details. She confirmed that the two seats next to the ruptured plug were not occupied at the time of the accident.

The unoccupied seats and timing of the event—during climb, when passengers are often seated and belted in, instead of during cruise, when both passengers and cabin attendants are moving around—minimized the risk, Homendy suggested. Another lucky element in the accident sequence: the departing plug did not strike any part of the airframe or tail assembly.

An NTSB team spent Jan. 7 documenting damage, deformation and witness marks on the left plug surround structure in situ, Homendy said. The team took photos and examined witness marks looking for paint transfer and identified the components they want to send back to the lab for further evaluation.  

Credit: NTSB

“They’ll look for fractures, they’ll look at more paint marks, if anything was sheared or if there was any deformation they may be able to see it better under the microscope,” she said.  

The team also plans to look at the door plug that remains intact in the fuselage.  

The NTSB wants to look more closely at auto-pressurization fail light that illuminated on three previous flights in December and January.  

Those three events were reported as “benign” occurrences by the airline, Homendy said. Further maintenance work to look into the light had been planned but not yet carried out by the time of the Jan. 5 incident. An E-TOPS restriction had been put in place preventing the aircraft being used on routes to Hawaii over the water so that it could return quickly to an airport if the light came on again.  

The NTSB has requested documentation of any maintenance carried out on the aircraft since it was delivered in October.  

“We will want to look into that system further,” Homendy said. "It’s certainly a concern and one we want to dig into and look at what occurred there and if there is any relation at all or correlation on this event, we don’t know that at this time. It may have nothing to do with the auto-pressurization system, it could be something just wrong with the light.”  

The NTSB has sent the aircraft’s flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder to its lab but has established that the CVR was completely rewritten so will not provide any information for the investigation.  

After the end of the late Jan. 7 briefing Homendy returned to disclose that the plug had been found.

A schoolteacher named Bob from Portland, Oregon, found the door plug in his backyard and sent in photos to the NTSB, Homendy said. NTSB would soon begin analyzing what had been a key missing component of the investigation, she said.  

"We have the safest aviation system in the world," Homendy said. "We are the global gold standard for safety around the world. But we have to maintain that standard. We are very, very fortunate here that this didn't end up in something more tragic."

Plug Configuration

Photos released by NTSB show the aircraft is missing the fuselage plug and window section in the deactivated left-hand mid-emergency door (MED), sometimes referred to as a mid-exit door. The 737-9 has two of these Type 1 MEDs, each measuring 26 x 51 in., located aft of the trailing edge of the wing on the left and right sides of the fuselage.

When activated, the additional emergency exit doors enable higher-capacity configurations for up to 220 passengers. However, as Alaska does not operate the 737-9 in these denser seating arrangements, the MED exits are blocked off with plugs to save weight. The plug configuration limits capacity to 189 passengers; Alaska's 737-9s have 178 seats.

The plug configuration—one of two options Boeing offers to deactivate MED exits on a 737-9—incorporates a standard window and is concealed behind a cabin interior sidewall panel section.

The plugs and surrounding fuselage section are supplied by Spirit AeroSystems, which remains under scrutiny for numerous production-quality lapses on 737 and 787 subassemblies—its two largest programs.

Diagram of a Boeing 737-9 mid-cabin door plug and components. Credit: Boeing via NTSB

United Airlines also operates 737-9s with the blocked exits and is affected by the FAA order.

Boeing said it is in communication with Alaska and gathering more information. It is supporting the NTSB's probe.

Before the FAA's mandate, Alaska said each of the 65 affected aircraft would undergo full maintenance and safety inspections, which the carrier expects will be complete “in the next few days," CEO Ben Minicucci said in a statement.

“We are working with Boeing and regulators to understand what occurred tonight, and will share updates as more information is available,” he added.

Alaska reviewed its maintenance records said 18 of its 737-9s had undergone routine, scheduled inspections that included examinations of the plug assembly before the in-flight occurrence. The airline initially cleared those aircraft in service, but removed them when the FAA order was issued.

"These aircraft have now also been pulled from service until details about possible additional maintenance work are confirmed with the FAA," the airline said Jan 6. "We are in touch with the FAA to determine what, if any, further work is required before these aircraft are returned to service."

The aircraft involved, N704AL, was delivered on Oct. 31, 2023, the Aviation Week Network Fleet Discovery database shows. It had operated 134 cycles through Dec. 31, according to Fleet Discovery's Tracked Aircraft Utilization, including 79 in December.

The 737-9 variant, the second of the re-engined 737 Next Generation family to enter service, completed its first flight on April 13, 2017. Most of the 218 737-9s in service are with United and Alaska.

United said that 33 of its 737-9s have already had the required inspection. It was the first North American carrier to operate the variant, in June 2018, and operates many of the highest-time airframes.

Turkish Airlines said it removed five affected 737-9s "until the technical investigation process is completed and the measures requested by the authorities are implemented," a spokesperson said.

FlyDubai confirmed that its three aircraft are not affected because they do not have the blocked exit plug configuration.

Other operators with substantial numbers of 737-9s with deactivated exits include Copa Airlines (29), Aeromexico (18), Fleet Discovery shows.

Panama-based Copa said Jan. 6 that it had temporarily suspended operations of 21 737-9s until the aircraft could undergo inspections based on the FAA EAD. Copa said it had initiated the technical inspections and expected to return the aircraft “safely and reliably to the flight schedule within the next 24 hours.”

The E-7 gets an upgrade.

 I clipped this from my work email, The B737 platform is getting a workout, I didn't know about this one.

Credit: Boeing

NATO allies have approved a decision to modernize the alliance’s airborne early warning (AEW) capability using Boeing’s E-7 Wedgetail platform.

Following in the footsteps of the UK and U.S., six E-7s will be acquired to replace the current 14-strong NATO fleet of Boeing E-3 Sentry aircraft to meet its initial Alliance Future Surveillance and Control (iAFSC) capability. Initial operational capability is planned for 2031.

The decision to select the E-7—by a consortium of nations including Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania and the U.S.—follows the December 2022 publication by the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) of a request for information for alternative AEW platforms.

Various airframers responded: Saab offered their GlobalEye, Northrop Grumman proposed the E-2 Hawkeye and L3Harris offered a conformal AEW conversion of the Bombardier Global 6500.

However, it seems that the E-7 won out, with NSPA telling Aerospace DAILY that the E-7 was judged as the “only known system currently capable of fulfilling the strategic commands’ essential operational requirements and key performance parameters and also being available for delivery within the timeframe required.”

Other considerations that favored the E-7 include its endurance, crew size, number of work stations and crew rest areas, as well as surveillance coverage capability, growth capacity and risk associated with design and delivery.

The aircraft is also a known entity. Another version of the platform, the E-7T operated by the Turkish Air Force, regularly flies alongside the E-3s from Konya, Turkey, while an Australian E-7 is currently operating in Europe on a six-month deployment monitoring and protecting supply routes from Poland into Ukraine.

“Surveillance and control aircraft are crucial for NATO’s collective defense and I welcome allies’ commitment to investing in high-end capabilities,” says NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. “This investment in state-of-the-art technology shows the strength of transatlantic defense cooperation as we continue to adapt to a more unstable world," Stoltenberg adds.

The number of aircraft is eye-opening. A fleet of six represents less than half the number of NATO E-3s currently in service, but according to NSPA, six is the “minimum number of aircraft that the strategic commands state is required to deliver the minimum operational capability for Supreme Allied Commander Europe’s day-zero airborne air battle management capability.”

By comparison, the UK Royal Air Force is buying three E-7s to replace a fleet of originally seven E-3s, while the U.S. Air Force plans to buy 26.

Entry into service of the UK aircraft is running behind schedule, however, and service entry is planned for 2025.

Delivery by 2031 will ensure there is no capability gap when the E-3 fleet is finally retired from service in 2035, replaced by the wider AFSC multi-domain surveillance system, currently in development, which is expected to include uncrewed airborne surveillance systems.

In an emailed statement, Boeing says it appreciated the confidence from NSPA and participating NATO nations in the proven capabilities and interoperability benefits of the E-7.

“We stand ready to support this Foreign Military Sale and deliver this exceptional capability that will enhance NATO’s readiness,” the company’s statement reads.

Just like the E-3s, it is likely the E-7s will be manufactured by Boeing, although there are no details about whether the aircraft will be supported by European industry. The E-3s, for example, undergo maintenance and upgrades with companies such as Airbus and Leonardo.

Saab appears less than impressed with the decision, however.

In a statement, the company says it has noted NSPA’s decision, but it would “welcome further dialogue” on the agency’s decision process.

“From a technological point of view, GlobalEye is meeting or exceeding all capabilities set forth in the [request],” the Swedish company states, adding, "GlobalEye is pushing technology to levels that legacy thinking will miss out on."

AERO designed launched to save fuel for Narrow Body Planes

 Sorry about missing a post, I am now on night shift and it is a transition for me.  I know how to handle it, and it was almost a reunion from the comments like "Hey Welcome back to the Darkside" since I am a night-rider again, LOL.   I snagged this off the reports I get off my emails and I thought it was pretty neat.

 This is important to my employer, Fuel cost is the single biggest cost an airline has to deal with and if the cost savings of a mod can quickly translate into fuel savings, airlines will do it.  Especially due to the feckless policies of this administration, the fuel cost will not be going down any time and the airlines can't keep raising ticket prices to offset fuel cost because eventually the flying public will not fly because there is a pain threshold that will be met.  Sure there are business travelers that will pay the cost, but they can't pay"All the freight" as they say.

Unpainted aft wing-to-body and extended flap track fairings form part of the ADL ADRS-1 kit, which was flight-tested in 2021 and 2022 on a WestJet 737-700.

As airlines face their highest jet fuel prices in two decades, a Texas-based aerospace engineering startup has unveiled an extensive drag-reduction package for the Boeing 737 Next Generation family for entry into service this year.

• Lightweight kit targets 1.5% lower fuel burn on 737-700
• Drag reduction package also offered on 737-800/-900

Aero Design Labs (ADL) has been quietly developing the aerodynamic drag-reduction system (ADRS-1) kit since the company was formed in 2017 by business and aviation entrepreneur Lee Sanders. Now, with a newly awarded FAA supplemental type certificate (STC) in hand, ADL is emerging from stealth mode to provide initial kits for the 737-700 in the coming months and is targeting clearance for the upgrade on the 737-800/-900 by year-end.

“Our next steps are to build out the customer base for the 737-700 and the introduction of the 737-800 and 737-900 kits,” says Jeff Martin, ADL president and CEO. “Our first customer on the 737-700 is WestJet, who partnered with us and was instrumental in the testing and the proving of our STC. They stood by our side during flight test and shared our conviction toward carbon reduction further supporting our industry’s [environment, social and governance] goals.”

In addition to Calgary, Canada-based WestJet, which will require Transport Canada’s approval based on the FAA STC before entry into service, other major 737 Next Generation (737NG) family operators such as Delta Air Lines are set to adopt the upgrade, Martin says. “Each kit will provide a different benefit based on the carrier’s fleet composition and how they fly the aircraft,” he adds. “Based on our computational fluid dynamics results, we are targeting a 1.5% carbon reduction with the 737-700, and we expect additional gains on the 737-800 and 737-900.”

The reprofiled wing-to-body fairing of the ADL package improved airflow over the aft fuselage.

Based on an average of $3 a gallon, this reduced drag equates to around $12,000 per month in fuel cost savings and “over 40 tons of CO₂ reduction per aircraft per month,” Martin says. “So that puts them right in line with the Corsia and 2050 carbon neutrality targets that many of the airlines are adopting,” he adds, referring to the International Civil Aviation Organization’s Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (Corsia).

The fuel burn benefits are expected to improve with the larger 737-800 and 737-900 models because of the longer stage length usually flown by these versions as well as the “design of the ADL kits and the length of the fuselage and how that ties into the airflow,” Martin says.

Designed by a team led by ADL’s chief technology officer and airframe drag-reduction specialist Eric Ahlstrom, the modification kit was refined using proprietary computational fluid dynamic (CFD) algorithms that were tested on supercomputers in the UK and U.S. “You cannot fix what you cannot see, and we’ve figured out ways to take the granularity of the output of the software to see airflow and air movement in ways we think no other CFD on the planet has been able to do,” says Sanders, whose ADL concept builds on more than a decade of earlier aerodynamic efficiency studies on commercial airliners.

“Our proprietary software has embedded artificial intelligence that will significantly shorten future run times,” he adds. “What used to take us literally five months to develop a product we can now get done in a matter of a few weeks.”

The ADRS-1 kit consists of a revised wing-to-body aft fairing, modified flap track fairing tips, updated wheel-well fairings, revised aerodynamics around the environmental control system (ECS) pack ram air exit duct and several strategically placed vortex generators. The modifications are particularly tailored to address areas of interference and parasitic drag around the fuselage that have never previously been tackled or only partially treated over the life of the aircraft.

Made predominantly from composite structure, the kit weighs 180 lb. but results in a net gain of only 110 lb. after replacement of the original structure. ADL says future weight reductions are being studied but adds that the current material set is designed to “far exceed FAA standards and airline rigor.” The kit is expected to require around 150 work-hours to install. “We feel that the kit is minimally impactful from an out-of-service time perspective,” Martin says.

 A closer view of the extended flap track fairings—also dubbed canoe fairings—that form part of the ADL ADRS-1 kit

To industrialize the kit and meet a demand curve that ADL expects will rival that of the 737 winglet retrofit programs, the company has brought together a team of manufacturing and distribution heavyweights. Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Nordam will produce the bulk of production kits and be supplemented by LA Composite, a Czech manufacturer that made the initial parts for the flight-test program with WestJet. Distribution will be handled by another strategic partner, Illinois-based aviation services company AAR.

“As our production partner, from a quality and quantity standpoint, we are well placed with Nordam,” Martin says. “We know that they can match any demands that we think of from the commercial team or from a sales standpoint.”

Nordam, which is ramping up to produce 92 kits per month initially, “is pleased to be part of [a program] that drives greener aviation through potential carbon emission reductions,” says Meredith Madden, Nordam CEO.

Martin adds that working with “AAR ensures that we’ll have timely distribution and support for our service for our airline partners.”

 

AAR President and CEO John Holmes says the company “looks forward to working closely with ADL and the airline community to help advance this offering in the marketplace.”

ADL is optimistic about placing the ADRS-1 kit with a large percentage of the 737NG in-service fleet, which currently includes more than 5,200 aircraft, according to the Aviation Week Network’s Commercial Aviation Fleet Discovery database. Not including some subvariants, 923 of these are 737-700s, 3,665 are baseline 737-800s, and the 737-900/-900ER model accounts for almost 460 more.

Looking further ahead, the company is also seeing additional projects. “There’s a lot of opportunity to reduce drag across all airframes, and we’ve proven that we can solve it for the 737 Next Generation series,” Martin says. “And we’ll demonstrate that and move that across other fleet types.”

Having provided an aircraft and flight-test and engineering support for the ADL project, WestJet is primed to become one of the first operators of the drag-reduction system. However, Scott Wilson, WestJet vice president of operations, says: “We need the FAA STC to be familiarized by aircraft certification [with] Transport Canada, so we’re just starting that work now. We don’t know what that time frame looks like, but we hope it won’t be too long. We’re anxious to get the aircraft flying and to validate the fuel savings.”

The airline, which operates 48 737-700s on a wide range of routes including long-haul transatlantic flights, will fly the first modified aircraft between 60 and 90 days to validate the “actual fuel savings in the WestJet environment,” Wilson adds.

Delta will be a lead partner in certifying the modification for the larger 737NG members, says Mahendra Nair, senior vice president of Delta Fleet and TechOps Supply Chain. “Delta intends to partner with ADL to assist with developing a 737-900ER STC to embody a game-changing drag reduction kit to reduce fuel burn supporting both Delta’s fuel cost reduction and sustainability goals.

“Depending on the success of the testing program, we expect to roll out the kit on our 737NG fleet over the next few years,” Nair adds. “In addition to 77 737-800s, Delta currently operates 130 737-900ER aircraft, and we are in the process of adding an additional 29 gently used aircraft to the fleet. Jet fuel is the No. 1 contributor to Delta’s carbon footprint and the chief focus of our efforts to reduce our emissions and manage our environmental impact.”