{"id":42440,"date":"2026-01-06T13:41:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T13:41:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/a-pilot-on-the-alaska-airlines-flight-that-lost-a-door-plug-is-suing-the-airline-for-10m-saying-it-tried-to-blame-the-crew\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T13:41:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T13:41:24","slug":"a-pilot-on-the-alaska-airlines-flight-that-lost-a-door-plug-is-suing-the-airline-for-10m-saying-it-tried-to-blame-the-crew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/a-pilot-on-the-alaska-airlines-flight-that-lost-a-door-plug-is-suing-the-airline-for-10m-saying-it-tried-to-blame-the-crew\/","title":{"rendered":"A pilot on the Alaska Airlines flight that lost a door plug is suing the airline for $10m, saying it tried to blame the crew"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/695cfe5804eda4732f2e8648?format=jpeg\" alt=\"In this National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) handout, an opening is seen in the fuselage of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 Boeing 737-9 MAX on January 7, 2024 in Portland, Oregon\"\/><figcaption>The hole where the door plug used to be on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282.<\/p>\n<p>NTSB via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>The captain of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 is suing Boeing for $10 million. <\/li>\n<li>The Boeing 737 Max made an emergency landing after losing a panel in midair.<\/li>\n<li>Brandon Fisher&#039;s lawsuit said Boeing tried to &quot;scapegoat&quot; the pilots.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The captain of the Alaska Airlines plane that lost a panel midflight is suing Boeing, accusing it of trying to &quot;scapegoat&quot; the pilots.<\/p>\n<p>Attorneys for Brandon Fisher filed the lawsuit last Tuesday in an Oregon court, asking for $10 million in damages.<\/p>\n<p>Back in January 2024, Flight 1282 took off from Portland, bound for Ontario, California.<\/p>\n<p>But at 16,000 feet, the Boeing 737 Max lost a door plug \u2014 a panel that covers a deactivated emergency exit.<\/p>\n<p>The pilots declared an emergency and descended below 10,000 feet, so there was enough oxygen to breathe normally.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;But for Captain Fisher&#039;s heroism and immense display of composure under pressure, the outcome would have been catastrophic,&quot; the lawsuit said.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Instead, Captain Fisher and First Officer [Emily] Wiprud executed a safe emergency landing despite chaotic conditions in the cockpit caused by the gaping hole in the left side of the aircraft.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board later found that the plane had left Boeing&#039;s factory missing key bolts that would&#039;ve secured the door plug.<\/p>\n<p>It said that the fuselage arrived from the supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, with damaged rivets. Boeing workers removed the plug to repair them, but didn&#039;t put the bolts back in place, the NTSB found. This work wasn&#039;t properly documented, which also meant that there was no inspection that could&#039;ve spotted the missing bolts, it said. <\/p>\n<p>Spirit AeroSystems is also named as a defendant in Fisher&#039;s suit. Boeing completed its acquisition of most of Spirit in December, with the aim of integrating its operations to gain greater control over its supply chain.<\/p>\n<p>Fisher&#039;s suit said that, while defending a class-action lawsuit related to the incident, Boeing denied liability, saying its products were &quot;improperly maintained or misused by persons and\/or entities other than Boeing.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It was clear Boeing&#039;s words were directed at Captain Fisher in attempt to paint him as the scapegoat for Boeing&#039;s numerous failures,&quot; it said.<\/p>\n<p>The suit says that Fisher suffered emotional distress as a result. &quot;Boeing&#039;s comments dramatically exacerbated the life-changing impacts that this incident caused Captain Fisher,&quot; it added.<\/p>\n<p>In an internal memo, viewed by Business Insider, which was sent around shortly after the incident, the then-CEO of Boeing&#039;s commercial airplanes division, Stan Deal, told employees: &quot;We commend the pilots and cabin crew of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 for their actions to safely land the plane.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Boeing declined to comment when reached by Business Insider, citing the fact that the suit is pending litigation.<\/p>\n<p>Alaska Airlines didn&#039;t immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside US working hours.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The hole where the door plug used to be on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282. NTSB via Getty Images The captain of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 is suing Boeing for $10 million. The Boeing 737 Max made an emergency landing after losing a panel in midair. Brandon Fisher&#039;s lawsuit said Boeing tried to &quot;scapegoat&quot; the pilots. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42441,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-42440","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}