The Seattle Times

Boeing ousts 737 Max chief in shake-up as blowout fallout mounts

Boeing has ousted the leader of the 737 Max program at its Renton plant and reshuffled its leadership team at the Commercial Airplanes division, effective immediately.

The moves come more than a month after a Renton, Washington-assembled Max 9 saw a fuselage panel blow out of an Alaska Airlines flight departing Portland.

Investigators contend key bolts were missing from the plane prior to the Jan. 5 blowout, a failure that has increased scrutiny of quality control at Boeing and its suppliers and put intense pressure on company leadership.

What does Lake Washington's warming mean for its future?

ABOARD THE SOUNDGUARDIAN, Lake Washington — The region's cold, watery heart is nestled between Seattle and the Eastside.

It uniquely supports two major roadways atop floating bridges, has offered beachgoers a summertime respite for decades and is central to the identity of the Seattle area's culture.

But Lake Washington is changing — by over half a degree Fahrenheit each recent decade.

In fact, since 1963, the lake's surface from June to September has warmed about 4.3 degrees, according to data collected and analyzed by King County and the University of Washington.

NTSB report on Alaska Flight 1282 says key bolts missing when Boeing delivered jet

The investigation into the midair blowout of a fuselage door plug on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 on Jan. 5 has confirmed that four bolts that should have kept the door plug in place were missing when Boeing delivered the aircraft, the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday in a preliminary report on the incident.

“Four bolts that prevent upward movement of the mid exit door plug were missing before the mid exit door plug moved upward off the stop pads,” the report states.

Washington state House bill would make it illegal for police to lie during interrogations

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Victims of false confessions that lead to wrongful convictions, like Ted Bradford, want to prohibit police from using deceptive tactics during interrogations, and they have the backing of some lawmakers.

"It was the worst experience of my life," said Bradford, Washington's first DNA exoneree, when recalling his 1996 interrogation when he was accused of sexual assault. "I knew I was innocent ... no matter how many times I told them over and over, I didn't do this."

Boeing leaders address airplane quality crisis and hit to reputation

Last year ended better for Boeing than Wall Street had projected, yet when the earnings details were released Wednesday, the healthy cash flow didn't seem to matter much now.

"Boeing's world changed on January 5th when the Alaska Airlines door blew off, and so anything before that date is now of less relevance," financial analyst Rob Stallard of Vertical Research wrote a note to investors. Boeing lost $2.2 billion in 2023, the fifth loss in five bad years, but the best result since 2019.

Seattle Police Dept brass recommend officer's firing or suspension over 'horrific' comments

Seattle Police Department commanders have recommended possible termination for a union official who downplayed the death of a young woman struck and killed by a fellow officer last January, agreeing with the department's civilian watchdog that the union leader acted unprofessionally.

The commanders issued a blistering disciplinary recommendation to police Chief Adrian Diaz on Friday, sweeping aside excuses that Officer Daniel Auderer's comments about the death of 23-year-old graduate student Jaahnavi Kandula were private or police union business.

Seattle to Portland Amtrak train service suspended due to landslide

SEATTLE — A landslide north of Vancouver has disrupted passenger train service between Seattle and Portland, Oregon, until Sunday night, according to the Washington state Department of Transportation.

The slide, which occurred south of Kelso early Saturday morning, blocked the railroad tracks and triggered a 24-hour moratorium for all passenger trains per BNSF Railway rules, WSDOT spokesperson Janet Matkin said.

The moratorium affects several West Coast Amtrak lines, including Coast Starlight trains. Trains previously scheduled to terminate in Seattle will instead terminate in Portland.

Boeing 737 Max 9 still without a timeline to return to the sky

After five days of inspections and 40 evaluations, Boeing's 737 Max 9 remains grounded — without a clear timeline to take off.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday it had begun reviewing data from the first round of inspections on the grounded 737 Max 9 planes.

Those planes — about 171 of them — have become the subject of regulatory and consumer scrutiny after a door plug, installed to cover an unused emergency exit, flew out on an Alaska Airlines flight from Portland on Jan. 5.

The FAA grounded the Max 9 planes that fill the space with a door plug shortly after the incident.

Passengers sue Alaska Airlines, Boeing after 737 MAX 9 fuselage blowout

SEATTLE — Four Alaska Airlines passengers aboard the Boeing 737 MAX 9 plane when a piece of fuselage blew out earlier this month have sued both the manufacturer and the airline.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday morning in King County Superior Court in Seattle, is the first against Alaska Airlines since the Jan. 5 incident, according to Mark Lindquist, an attorney representing the passengers.

Lindquist also represented the families of dozens of victims after two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019 involving the Boeing 737 MAX 8.

Boeing and U.S. aerospace set back by Alaska Airlines fuselage blowout

When a door-sized section of a 737 MAX 9 fuselage exploded out into the void 16,000 feet over Portland, Boeing's once-solid reputation, already staggered by the two MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019, took another heavy blow.

The gaping hole that opened up and the violent decompression were terrifying and traumatic for the passengers and crew aboard Alaska Airlines Flight 1282.

Though no one died, and air travel still remains by far the safest form of transportation, this close call on a U.S. flight drew intense attention across the nation.

737 MAX 9: What to know as Alaska Airlines cancels more flights

Days after a chunk of a Boeing 737 MAX 9 airplane flew off while the plane was in the air, a lot of questions remain unanswered. The MAX 9, the less popular of the two MAX models currently certified to carry passengers, is still grounded. The National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating. And when the planes will start returning to the air is still unknown. But in the days since the flight, residents found the fuselage piece — a plug covering a hole cut for an unused emergency door— that came loose and a passenger’s phone that survived the 16,000-foot fall. The NTSB has determine...

Cancellations at Sea-Tac continue after Boeing 737 MAX 9 incident

The number of canceled flights to or from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport grew Sunday in the wake of a serious incident that led to a federally mandated grounding of most Boeing 737 MAX 9 models nationwide. As of 2:30 p.m. Sunday, 96 flights were canceled, a spike from the 86 flights canceled throughout the day Saturday, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware. An additional 145 flights were delayed Sunday. Alaska Airlines flights made up the vast majority of cancellations and delays at the airport. Travel disruptions are expected to continue into the week, according to Alask...

Cargo ship ablaze near Alaska’s Dutch Harbor

SEATTLE — The U.S. Coast Guard is responding to a cargo ship fire near Dutch Harbor, Alaska.

The fire was first reported early Thursday morning to the 17th Coast Guard District Command Center in Juneau as the vessel was located about 225 miles southwest of the harbor.

The fire is contained, but remains ongoing, according to a statement by the Coast Guard.

The 410-foot vessel, Genius Star XI, is reported to be carrying lithium-ion batteries.

A cause of the fire has yet to be determined.

With some flight attendants on welfare, Alaska Airlines faces contract fight

You wouldn’t know it to look at them. Junior Alaska Airlines flight attendants say they are barely getting by on poverty level wages, many of them building up debt and scrambling to make rent. Yes, they look sleekly professional on the job. But some with children qualify for food stamps and housing assistance. Some who live in cities far from their airline base resort to sleeping in their cars in crew parking lots the night before a flight, unable to pay for a hotel. Flight attendants Rebecca Owens, 34, and Thresia Raynor, 54, both based in Anchorage, set up a private Facebook page in Septembe...

Endangered Species Act's 50th anniversary: What 6 northwest animals can tell us

No matter how humble or obscure, all plant, animal and insect life in America is eligible for protection under the Endangered Species Act, one of the most far-reaching and important conservation statutes in the world. Arachnids, birds, corals, crustaceans, flatworms and roundworms, mammals, reptiles, sponges, trees, algae ... all species, great and small. The ESA turns 50 this month, and if beating extinction is the measure, the law has been a success. Of the more than 1,600 U.S. species listed for protection since the act's inception, 99% have been rescued from the oblivion of extinction. And...