Boeing has informed the Department of Justice and Congress that it cannot find the work records related to the Alaska Airlines 737 plane blowout.
Ziad Ojakli, Boeing executive vice president, made the admission in response to demands from a Senate committee to hand over key protocols, documents and personnel as part of a federal investigation into what caused a "door plug" to blow off a Boeing 737 Max 9 jet in midair.
When it comes to records for work done on the door panel, Boeing doesn't have any, according to Ojakli.
"We have looked extensively and have not found any such documentation," Ojakli wrote to Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, in a letter that was obtained by The Seattle Times.
Ojakli implied that the work records couldn't be found because they were never created.
"[Boeing's] working hypothesis: that the documents required by our processes were not created when the door plug was opened," he wrote, according to The Times report.
Last week, Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, accused Boeing of withholding information from investigators. She testified at a Senate hearing that the company has not provided requested documentation associated with the removal and re-installment of the door plug that flew off the aircraft, nor have they given the NTSB access to the team of employees assigned to aircraft doors or even identified those employees.
"We have gone through emails, we've gone through texts, we've looked at pictures to begin to get a picture of the date in mid-September, the two dates in mid-September that we believe the work occurred," Homendy said during the hearing. "We haven't received that information directly from Boeing. We also believe we know what shift it occurred on. But we still -- there is one team... that deals with the doors, of 25 people. Why we don't have those names today, two months later, is really disappointing."
Following the hearing, Sen. Cantwell sent a letter to Boeing, demanding that the company provide the NTSB with the requested information – including documentation of the door plug removal and reinstallation, and the names of the 25 people assigned to the door plug team – within 48 hours.
Last month, the NTSB released a preliminary report that found four bolts needed to secure the door plug on the Boeing 737 MAX-9 were missing before the aircraft was delivered to the airline. That door plug blew out of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 on January 5 about 10 minutes after takeoff, causing an uncontrolled decompression in the cabin as the plane was 16,000 feet over Portland, Oregon.
The U.S. Department of Justice is involved in the investigation to determine whether or not criminal charges will need to be filed. The DOJ and Boeing entered into a deferred-prosecution agreement in a 2021 case that investigated two fatal crashes of the company's 737 Max jetliner. If the faulty door on the Alaska Air flight is deemed to be a breach of that agreement, it could trigger criminal liability for Boeing.
Meantime, Alaska Airlines and Boeing are facing a lawsuit brought by multiple passengers who claim they experienced "havoc, fear, trauma, [and] severe and extreme distress" during the midair blowout.
None of the 171 passengers and six crew members were seriously injured.