A trial date has been set for the Boeing 737 Max 9 door plug blowout incident, involving 46 passengers who claim they were injured.
However, a judge still needs to rule on if the airplane manufacturer can be held legally liable for the injuries people sustained related to the incident.
In January 2024, an Alaska Airlines flight that took off from Portland, OR was forced to make an emergency landing after a door plug blew out, creating an air vacuum that sucked objects out of the cabin.
Attorneys for Boeing, Alaska Airlines, Spirit Aerosystems, and 46 victims claiming injuries from the incident debated which evidence should be allowed if or when the trial ultimately begins.
Attorneys for the victims, or plaintiffs, argued that the NTSB report, which found four bolts had not been installed to hold the door plug in place, should be admissible in a trial.
“Boeing has all but admitted it publicly and for reasons that are inexplicable simply refuses to do so here in court.” said Daniel Laurence, an attorney for the plaintiffs.
“It’s opposition essentially suffers the same defect as the airplane—there’s a giant evidentiary hole here that sucks all the oxygen out of their argument.” Laurence contended.
Boeing argues that Washington State Law allows only factual incident reports to be used as evidence, not incident reports from boards like the NTSB. Judge Nikole Hecklinger will rule whether the NTSB report is allowed in an upcoming hearing.
Boeing’s lawyer, Christopher Ledford, said the plaintiff’s argument was incomplete, so the Judge should dismiss the claims against the airplane company.
Ledford says there are three burdens to prove potential liability: The construction of the airplane was faulty, the faulty construction led to an injury, and prove that the individuals claiming relief were injured because of the faulty construction.
Ledford argues plaintiffs have only provided evidence around the burden of construction.
“Plaintiffs themselves submitted no evidence at all on two of the key points,” Ledford said.
“We think they should be strictly held to that. This is the plaintiff’s motion, and they should be required to meet the standard that they themselves invoked.”
Plaintiff attorneys also stated Boeing has not provided a single document of evidence, which is a legally required part of the discovery process before trial. Boeing says it wants a protective order issued around the evidence because of potential proprietary information federal law bars them from releasing.
Judge Hecklinger set a trial date for February 1, 2027.
Reporting from the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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