Part 4/10:
When the 737 Max 9, designated Flight 8789, reached Boeing’s Renton factory in August 2023 for final assembly, engineers discovered problematic rivets near one of the door plugs. After the rivets were “fixed”—or rather, painted over—without proper follow-ups, the team mismanaged further inspections. A pressure seal for the door plug was also damaged during these hurried rechecks, which delayed necessary replacements.
However, amidst mounting internal tensions within Boeing regarding the quality of Spirit AeroSystems' work, vital parts of the process were truncated. In a dire miscommunication, the removal of the plug was never fully executed while the accompanying quality assurance measures were overlooked—a grave mistake that would soon come back to haunt all on board.