I think the plane was restricted from flying over open water (Alaska's routes from to Alaska from west coast cities often go over ocean) rather than trans-oceanic in the traditional sense.
Very sensible precaution to only fly over land, after all, it's easier to recover the body of a passenger that is sucked out of the plane when searching on land.
The question is if these bolts were badly designed, and slowly became loose after a number of flights, or if the bolts simply weren't torqued properly at the factory.
The bolts have a hole drilled through them and are fitted with a castellated nut which is then locked in place by a split pin which is opened out and folded around the nut. That should be a secure arrangement and it's difficult to imagine how that can fail if properly installed.
Although these plug-in type doors cannot be opened in normal operation, it is apparently common practice to remove them during certain services. It is questionable whether a virtually brand new aeroplane such as the one in question would have needed such a service.
For anyone interested, I got the information from Juan Brown and Chris Brady.
Worth nothing that Boeing has moved some of its production from Washington to South Carolina for cheaper labour and to get around the strong Boeing worker unions at the Washington factories.
In the latest manufacturing error to plague Boeing, a supplier of 737 Max aircraft components discovered misdrilled holes on the fuselages of 50 planes that were in production for the aircraft company, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal.
Well, if Boeing noticed that the parts were faulty when they arrived at the factory, then that at least shows that quality control worked in this instance.
I didn’t realize Culp was a name on the list for Boeing. He may not be an engineer but he is freaking ruthless. I would take that outcome pretty positively.
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