A different Boeing 737 Max model is making headlines for the wrong reasons.
USA Today reports that a Southwest Airlines-operated 737 Max 8 was grounded for more than week after crucial parts were damaged during so-called “Dutch roll,” in which a plane twists and spins at the same time in mid-air.
Dutch rolls place tremendous strain on commercial airliners due to their size and the forces already exerted on them during flights. The newspaper says that the plane’s tail section was substantially damaged during a May 25 flight before being sent back to Boeing on June 6. Nobody was injured and the plane landed safely.
The extent of the damage wasn’t fully understood until this week. Southwest declined to comment on the matter after a Quartz request for comment other than to say that “the event is under investigation,” and that “Southwest is supporting and participating in that investigation.”
The full understanding of the incident was made public the same day that Mike Whitaker, chief administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, told the Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation that his agency hadn’t been monitoring Boeing as closely as it should have been. He was testifying because legislators are trying to get to the bottom of how and why a door plug fell off an Alaska Airlines-operated 737 Max 9 plane mid-flight earlier this year.
“The FAA should have had much better visibility into what was happening at Boeing before January 5th, and the approach was too hands-off and too focused on paperwork audits and not focused enough on inspections,” he told senators. “We have changed that approach over the last several months and [those changes] are permanent.”
The agency said something similar the last time a 737 Max model — the same “8″ version that experienced the Dutch roll — was at the center of a scandal.
