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0:33

Nick Hoke, the flight started out like any

0:35

other, kind of boring. I

0:37

was in seat 12A on the left

0:40

side of the aircraft. You just

0:42

kind of settle into your pre-flight routine,

0:44

get your podcast going. I had my

0:46

headphones on, and

0:48

then we eventually take off just around five

0:50

or just after five o'clock. Nick's

0:53

an architect in his 30s, and

0:55

he was taking off from Portland, Oregon to

0:57

visit his girlfriend in California. And

0:59

Nick said he travels pretty frequently, but

1:02

this flight was a little

1:04

different. Just a few minutes into

1:06

the flight, maybe seven, 10

1:09

minutes, somewhere around in that area,

1:12

all of a sudden, hell breaks loose. A

1:17

big boom in the back, a big pop,

1:19

kind of like a mini explosion,

1:23

followed like immediately by a

1:26

rapid depressurization of the cabin, which

1:28

is like puncturing

1:30

a CO2 canister with

1:33

this water vapor and all the

1:35

oxygen's being sucked out. So that

1:37

kind of white cloud

1:39

or mist comes rushing from

1:41

the front of the plane, kind of

1:44

hit me in the

1:46

face, almost blew my

1:48

hat off. I grabbed that. The

1:50

plane kind of like shuddered, and

1:52

you could feel the wind of

1:55

it, right? It just, that

1:57

whoosh, getting sucked through the cabin.

2:02

Nick spoke to our colleague Sylvia

2:04

Foster-Frow after last Friday's accident on

2:06

an Alaska Airlines flight when

2:09

one of the plane's panels blew out

2:11

mid-air, leaving a gaping hole.

2:15

At that point, someone stood up in the middle

2:17

of the plane and said, there's a f***ing hole

2:19

in the plane as he's pointing back. There's

2:21

a hole in the plane. Oh my God, there's a hole. Then

2:25

the pilot radioed air traffic control

2:27

and prepared for an emergency landing.

2:30

Yes, we are emergency. We are depressurized.

2:32

We do need to return back to. We

2:34

have on air temperature and passenger. Sure,

2:36

it's 18-8. But

2:45

sitting toward the back of the plane, Nick

2:48

said the flight attendants' announcements were hard to

2:50

hear over the air rushing through the cabin.

2:53

Nick focused on breathing through his oxygen mask.

2:56

He texted his girlfriend, I love you.

2:58

There's kind of a lot going on

3:00

and just general disorientation of not

3:03

knowing what's happening. And that leaves your

3:06

mind to go to places of the

3:08

worst case scenario. As

3:10

the plane sped toward the tarmac, Nick

3:13

braced for impact. But the

3:15

landing was pretty smooth. People

3:17

applauded. And then something

3:20

totally surreal happened. The

3:22

oddest thing is that we all deborted like normal.

3:25

It's like waiting for people to get off,

3:27

you know, like 10, 12, 15

3:29

rows ahead of you. And it's like that same

3:31

kind of like, when is it

3:33

my turn to get off? We

3:39

all got super lucky. And

3:41

we can in some ways look back and

3:43

some people are going to be mentally and

3:45

physically traumatized. But ultimately we

3:48

all came away with our lives. From

3:54

the newsroom of The Washington Post, this

3:56

is Post Reports. It's

3:58

Wednesday, January 10th. I'm

4:01

Arjun Singh, and I'm your guest host. Today,

4:04

I speak with my colleague

4:06

Ian Duncan, who covers transportation for the

4:08

Post. He unpacks what

4:11

we know so far about this terrifying flight,

4:13

and the questions it's raising about

4:15

Boeing, the plane's manufacturer, and

4:18

oversight of air travel in the US. You

4:28

know, for me personally, this was a

4:30

really harrowing story to see, because I

4:33

myself was flying back from my aunt's

4:35

house in Atlanta on Sunday. A

4:37

lot of our colleagues here at the Post

4:39

travel all the time, particularly this week they're

4:41

going to the Iowa caucuses. You

4:44

know, there are people that travel weekly

4:46

or monthly, a lot. And

4:49

I guess I'm just wondering, what kind

4:52

of a response did this trigger, and

4:54

particularly from Boeing, the manufacturer of the

4:56

plane? So there's a whole

4:58

system that kicks into gear when

5:01

something like this happens. The

5:03

government and the airlines and the whole

5:05

industry obviously take something like this incredibly

5:07

seriously. Alaska moved pretty quickly

5:10

on Friday night to ground this particular

5:12

model of plane. It's a Boeing 737

5:14

MAX 9. And

5:18

then by Saturday, the FAA

5:21

had issued an emergency order

5:24

telling everyone who has this model

5:26

of plane in this configuration to

5:29

ground them and that they would need

5:31

to do some inspections before the FAA

5:33

would allow them back into the air.

5:36

And so that affected United Airlines as

5:38

well, which has a big fleet of

5:40

this particular model. The airlines

5:43

obviously complied with that. Boeing

5:45

jumps in to begin working out what

5:47

needs to be done in terms of

5:49

these inspections. And then

5:51

somewhat separately, you have a

5:54

whole investigative process involving

5:56

the National Transportation Safety Board that

5:59

kicks into... place, they sent

6:01

investigators out to Portland pretty

6:04

much as quick as they could, and it

6:06

will be their job to try and

6:08

figure out exactly what the cause of

6:10

this was and potentially make any recommendations

6:12

so that it can be avoided from

6:14

ever happening again. The National

6:17

Transportation Safety Board's team in Portland

6:19

was led by the board's chairwoman,

6:21

Jennifer Hummerde, and she held a

6:23

series of briefings to update the

6:25

public on the investigations. We

6:27

are very, very fortunate

6:30

here that this didn't

6:32

end up in

6:34

something more tragic. The

6:36

aircraft was around 16,000 feet

6:41

and only 10 minutes out from

6:43

the airport when the door blew. Fortunately,

6:46

they were not at cruise altitude of

6:48

30,000 or 35,000 feet. Think

6:52

about what happens when you're in cruise. Somebody's

6:55

up and walking. Folks don't

6:58

have seatbelts on. They're

7:00

going to restrooms. The

7:03

flight attendants are providing

7:05

service to passengers. We could have

7:07

ended up with something so much

7:09

more tragic and really fortunate that

7:12

that did not occur here. It

7:15

sounds like some people were hurt

7:18

enough that they had to go to the hospital.

7:21

They had been medically cleared, is

7:23

what Alaska said, by Saturday night.

7:27

I think, fortunately, not particularly

7:29

serious injuries. How

7:31

much do we know exactly about what

7:33

went wrong and where

7:36

in the process of manufacturing or

7:38

inspecting things seem to have maybe

7:40

missed this error? How much

7:42

do we know about that right now? We

7:45

don't know a ton. It's

7:47

still very early in the investigation. The

7:50

NTSB has just wrapped up the work

7:52

that it's doing on the

7:54

ground in Portland. They were able

7:56

to find this door. It fell

7:59

to Earth. it

12:00

wouldn't create a similar kind of problem. Again,

12:03

there were criminal investigations

12:06

into what Boeing had

12:08

done in the design of this plane and

12:11

how it had dealt with regulators. And

12:13

they ultimately had to settle

12:15

with the Justice Department. More

12:18

broadly, it really, really damaged the

12:20

reputation of this company

12:22

that is one

12:24

of the country's most important manufacturers.

12:28

And they had to get rid of their

12:30

CEO and really go on a process

12:32

of trying to rebuild trust and confidence.

12:35

You know, in Boeing, you know,

12:37

it's a huge company. It

12:39

seems at least whenever I go flying,

12:42

almost always my plane is a Boeing

12:44

plane. How widespread are

12:46

Boeing planes in commercial airlines

12:48

right now? I mean, absolutely

12:51

widespread that your impression is totally

12:53

right. I mean, there

12:55

are basically only two manufacturers

12:58

of airliners of

13:00

this size, you know, the big

13:02

kind of mainline airliners. And that's

13:05

Boeing and then Airbus, the European

13:07

company. And they're really

13:09

only the two choices. They

13:11

kind of compete with one another to sell

13:14

planes to airlines. But there

13:16

isn't a third or fourth option. Like

13:18

you might have, you know, if you're chopping to buy

13:20

a car or something like that. So

13:23

what is Boeing's response been to all of

13:25

this? And what have they had

13:27

to say about this issue that happened? Boeing

13:29

is working with the National Transportation

13:32

Safety Board on its investigation. So

13:34

they're involved in that process. And

13:37

then Boeing held a meeting

13:39

with its CEO on Tuesday at

13:41

the 737 factory in Washington State,

13:45

just outside Seattle. And

13:47

David Calhoun, who's the CEO of

13:49

Boeing, said that they were going

13:52

to approach this transparency and that

13:54

it would involve acknowledging their mistake.

13:56

I got kids, I got grandkids, and so do you.

14:00

The. Stuff matters. Everything.

14:03

Now that. I've

14:05

been teaching. oh man. I

14:08

know I'm preaching to the choir here.

14:10

This is intellectual property. Any scratch? It's.

14:12

Nothing more than a reminder. For

14:15

the seriousness with which we have to approach. Our

14:18

work. He

14:21

just comes. careful not to. Put.

14:23

Blame onto the company, but it's clear that

14:25

they recognize that they have work to do

14:27

here to can. Restore

14:29

confidence in their place. Is

14:35

there any reason to believe that this

14:37

could be a more widespread issue across

14:39

Boeing as a manufacturer rather than the

14:42

specific line of planes? Given the information

14:44

and facts we know now. I

14:47

think it's really difficult to

14:49

say you know if this

14:51

is systemic problem. I think

14:53

it's pretty troubling that deny

14:55

it on Alaska. Both say

14:57

that they have found issues

14:59

with this part that does

15:01

raise some concerns that that

15:03

this is more widespread but

15:05

I think in on the

15:07

other hand have to remember

15:09

that overall flying remains incredibly

15:11

safe and Jennifer home and

15:14

deserves the chair of the

15:16

National Transportation. Safety board that she

15:18

is not shy about calling out says

15:20

the problems are the of and she

15:22

will also trying to remind people that.

15:25

Flying is incredibly say

15:27

we have. The

15:29

safest aviation system in

15:31

the world's. It

15:34

is incredibly assays We are

15:36

the global gold standard for

15:38

safety. Around the world. But

15:40

we have to maintain set

15:43

standard. But.

15:45

It It's also understandable by people might be

15:47

worried. After

15:50

the break, we dig into the

15:52

broader questions this flight raised amongst

15:55

the airline industry and regulators. Will

15:57

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17:19

What are kind of the regulations

17:21

around something like this when a

17:23

manufacturing problem takes place with a

17:25

commercial airliner? Is

17:27

there a threshold where regulators

17:30

really feel that they need to aggressively

17:32

step in and ground a model plane?

17:35

Or I guess, what is that process

17:37

that you had alluded to earlier that

17:39

gets us from the initial problem to

17:41

the decision to ground to eventually,

17:44

hopefully, having these planes

17:47

be up to code and safe to fly again? So

17:50

when there is a specific

17:53

identifiable issue with an aircraft,

17:55

the FAA can issue something

17:57

called an airworthiness directive. And

18:00

that is a bulletin that

18:02

goes out to everyone who

18:04

is operating these planes in

18:06

the United States and then

18:08

it tends to be copied

18:11

by aviation regulators overseas as

18:13

well. Sometimes it's a

18:15

matter of, inspect these particular planes where we think

18:17

that there might be an issue

18:19

and in this case they

18:22

use something called an emergency

18:24

airworthiness directive which allows them

18:26

to move very quickly. And

18:29

they did ground the plane. And

18:32

then the FAA has a whole other set

18:34

of processes to kind of oversee the

18:36

manufacturing and the design of the

18:39

aircraft. And that is

18:41

where after the previous crashes involving

18:43

the MAX, the FAA came in

18:46

for a lot of criticism. They

18:48

rely on Boeing employees to do a

18:51

lot of that safety work on their

18:53

behalf. And there was a real

18:55

concern that there was a

18:57

conflict of interest there, that the FAA

18:59

just hadn't done enough to kind of

19:02

review the design and understand all

19:04

the possible interactions on the plane

19:07

that was implicated in what caused

19:09

the crashes. And so they

19:11

have been trying to tighten that oversight

19:13

up over the past several years. Congress

19:16

changed the law to give the FAA a

19:18

little bit more power and they're in the

19:20

process of doing that. Like in a number

19:22

of steps, but

19:24

it's something that's sort of still underway.

19:27

Yeah. I mean,

19:29

Ian, it does sound like the process

19:32

of review and everything that should

19:34

be taking place after an accident

19:37

like this happens is happening. But

19:40

does it also raise broader

19:42

issues within the airline industry

19:44

or amongst elected officials that

19:47

there needs to be more oversight

19:50

or more caution that

19:52

happens, whether in the manufacturing side of

19:54

things or on the regulatory side of

19:56

things? Or is it raising any questions

19:58

like that? I

20:00

think it's probably too early for

20:02

those kinds of conversations. I

20:05

think Congress is primed to watch

20:07

Boeing in particular and the FAA

20:10

pretty closely. I mean, I think

20:13

they learned after those previous crashes

20:15

that they need to be involved, that they

20:17

potentially need to make policy changes.

20:20

But I think until we know more about

20:22

exactly what went wrong and can pinpoint where

20:24

in the process that the problem that led

20:27

to this piece coming off arose.

20:29

It's going to be difficult for anyone to

20:31

kind of step in with any credibility and

20:34

say, this X, Y and

20:36

Z thing need to be changed. I

20:38

think there are absolutely more

20:40

questions for Boeing about how

20:42

much they had changed since

20:45

these previous MAX crashes.

20:47

I think they're going to be

20:50

continuing to follow the National Transportation

20:52

Safety Boards investigation. It's

20:54

likely to be at least a year before

20:56

we get the kind of final definitive answer

20:58

on what happened here. And

21:01

then the next thing that I think we're

21:03

likely to see is that these

21:05

inspections get completed and the airlines and

21:07

Boeing and the FAA start to be

21:10

confident that these planes can safely get

21:12

back up in the air. And

21:14

we will start to see that too. You

21:18

know, Ian, as you're reporting on this

21:20

story and you're thinking about this, is

21:22

there anything about this moment that has

21:24

been particularly revelatory for you or that

21:27

you've just felt like you need to bring

21:29

up with all the other transportation reporters when you

21:32

guys have your happy hour? And

21:34

yeah, I mean, what has really stood out to

21:36

you from all of this? I

21:39

think the thing that kind

21:41

of stands out is, you know, you

21:43

can cover this stuff for a while

21:45

and still be kind of surprised by

21:47

what can go wrong. And

21:49

so, you know, when you're on a plane, these

21:52

plugs, you can really barely tell that they're

21:54

there. And so the idea that this is

21:56

a part of the side of

21:59

the plane that can just fall

22:01

off was definitely not something

22:03

that I was expecting to see at all

22:05

and it's just kind of wild. Yeah,

22:07

you know Ian, I and one of our

22:09

producers were going to be taking a flight

22:11

for work and in a couple weeks and

22:14

you know it's hard to not feel a

22:16

little bit of anxiety seeing something

22:18

like this and then hearing about

22:21

manufacturing issues. These are scary sounding

22:23

terms I think. I

22:26

want to ask you as someone who

22:28

is very smartly watching this industry, what

22:30

would you say to someone like me right now who feels

22:33

a little nervous about flying? I

22:35

think you know it's understandable

22:37

that you feel nervous. I

22:40

would say that the overwhelming

22:43

likelihood is that you're going

22:45

to have a perfectly safe

22:47

and comfortable flight. The

22:50

other piece of this is that the system is

22:52

designed to have redundancies.

22:54

So yes,

22:56

this part came flying off this

22:58

plane. You had incredibly skilled pilots

23:01

who were able to safely get

23:03

this plane down to the ground.

23:05

I mean when you listen to them talking to

23:07

the air traffic control, the kind of calm that

23:09

they have as they're dealing with this emergency is

23:11

just kind of amazing. You

23:14

have flight attendants too who you sort

23:16

of deal with them as people

23:19

who are handing out food and

23:21

drinks and getting to UTSC but

23:23

they're also sort of trained in

23:25

emergency response too and they're designed

23:27

to help keep passengers safe. So

23:30

absolutely you don't want to be on a flight

23:32

where something like this happens but there are sort

23:34

of other levels of protection. And

23:37

that passenger that you heard from earlier

23:39

who was on this flight said that

23:41

they would have confidence in getting back

23:43

on an airline flight. I don't know.

23:46

I felt like lightning doesn't strike in the same place

23:49

twice kind of thing. I think it's

23:51

like a super safe mode of transportation.

23:55

I think we just got super

23:57

unlucky. We got super unlucky and

24:00

of like that happening to us and

24:02

then super lucky that we were able

24:04

to survive it. I think

24:06

you can look at the track record

24:08

in recent years that really should give

24:10

people a pretty good level of confidence

24:13

that they're going to get to where they're going safely.

24:20

Well Ian, thank you for your kind words.

24:22

I take your word that it will be

24:24

safe. I don't know if it will always

24:26

be comfortable since me and flying don't always

24:28

get along on that front, but thank you

24:30

for all your coverage on this issue and

24:32

joining us today. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Ian

24:41

Duncan covers transportation for The Post.

24:44

That's it for Post Reports. Thanks

24:46

for listening. Today's show

24:48

was produced by Emma Talcoff with help

24:51

from Sabi Robinson. It was

24:53

mixed by Renny Svirnovski and edited by

24:55

Monica Campbell. Thanks

24:57

to Sylvia Foster-Frau and Sandhya

24:59

Somoshanker. The recording

25:02

of the air traffic controller and

25:04

the Alaska Airlines pilot was provided

25:06

by liveatc.net. And

25:09

remember to check out our morning podcast to

25:11

seven. If you don't already

25:13

listen, look it up now and hit follow.

25:15

We run down the seven most important and

25:18

interesting stories you need to know all

25:20

in under seven minutes right around 7 a.m. I'm

25:24

Arjun Singh, your guest host. We'll

25:26

be back tomorrow with more stories from The Washington

25:29

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26:13

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