U.S. Department of Justice investigates Alaska Airlines flight door explosion

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The U.S. Justice Department is investigating an in-flight door panel explosion on an Alaska Airlines flight two months ago that horrified passengers.

The airline said: “It is normal for the Department of Justice to conduct an investigation in an incident like this. We are cooperating fully and do not believe we are a target of the investigation.”

Boeing has faced a Federal Aviation Administration civil investigation into the incident since January. A preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board found that four bolts holding the door panels in place were missing.

The FAA's six-week audit of the production and quality control processes of Boeing Co. and its supplier Spirit AeroSystems found “multiple instances in which the companies allegedly failed to comply with manufacturing quality control requirements.”

Neither Boeing nor the Justice Department immediately responded to requests for comment.

The aerospace manufacturer has been operating under a Department of Justice deferred prosecution agreement since 2021. Boeing admitted wrongdoing and agreed to pay $2.5 billion to resolve criminal fraud charges related to deceiving regulators about design flaws in the 737 Max. The flaw, which could have forced a plane's nose down based on erroneous sensor readings, led to two crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed a total of 346 people.

The three-year agreement between prosecutors and Boeing says the department will ask the court to dismiss the fraud charges if the manufacturer continues to implement a compliance program established after the crashes.

The Alaska Airlines blowout occurred two days before a three-year probation period expired. Boeing said in a January filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that the Justice Department “is currently considering whether we have met our obligations under the DPA and whether to take action to dismiss” the charge.

Boeing comes after National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairman Jennifer Homendy testified this week to the U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee that the company failed to turn over documents when the committee tried to investigate the door panel explosion. The company faced criticism from regulators.

Boeing acknowledged in a letter Friday to committee chairwoman Sen. Maria Cantwell that it did not have some of the requested documents. A preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board said the door panels arrived at the Boeing plant damaged, forcing workers to open the doors to make repairs. Aircraft manufacturing often requires documentation of work performed as a routine safety measure. But Boeing said it believed no such measure was taken in this case.

“Our team has shared with the NTSB multiple times that we have conducted an extensive investigation and have not located any such documents,” the letter said.

“We also shared with the NTSB our working hypothesis: Documents required by our process were not created when the door jam was opened. If this assumption were correct, no documents would have been created.”