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

John Vance sleeps on a table while his wife waits in line to rebook their flight that had been canceled by Alaska Airlines at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Saturday. The couple and their dog, Gemma, had been waiting for three hours by this point. They had a long trip to the airport and couldn’t turn around. They are trying to get back to Baltimore, Maryland. (Karen Ducey/Seattle Times)
By Amanda Zhou and Lulu Ramadan Seattle Times

SEATTLE – 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 Sunday afternoon, 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 Alaska Airlines. The airline is inspecting its fleet of 65 MAX 9s after a piece of one plane’s fuselage – the body of the aircraft – blew out on a flight out of Portland on Friday.

A panel plugging an unused door blew out at 16,000 feet, before the plane reached cruising altitude, according to early Federal Aviation Administration reports and flight data. A hole in the jet’s frame quickly decompressed air in the cabin, forcing the crew to turn the plane around and return to Portland International Airport.

Several passengers were injured but have since been medically cleared, Alaska Airlines said.

Thousands of flights nationwide have been delayed or canceled since the incident, according to FlightAware.

The Federal Aviation Administration ordered the temporary grounding and safety inspection of all MAX 9 aircraft operated in the country or by U.S. airlines. The inspections will affect about 171 Boeing planes with the same door plug that blew out Friday.

Alaska and United Airlines operate the most Boeing 737 Max 9s in the U.S., although several airlines have canceled or delayed flights.

At a media conference on Saturday night, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board Jennifer Homendy said the agency is looking for help finding the missing door, which they believe could be around the Cedar Hills neighborhood and Barnes Road, near Interstate 217, west of Portland.

The investigation is still in the early stages, she said, though crew members aboard have described the scene as “very chaotic” and “very loud.”

“We are very, very fortunate here that this didn’t end up in something more tragic,” Homendy said, adding that the door could have blown off at cruising altitude, when passengers and flight attendants would have been walking around.

She said the investigation at this moment is focused on this specific plane, which was put into service on Nov. 11, not the entire fleet.

“We’ll look at the pressurization system, we’ll look at the door, the hinges,” Homendy said. “Do we suspect that there is an overall design problem with this plane based on previous accidents involving Boeing Max? At this time, no.”