Indonesia returns differently-configured 737 MAX 9 aircraft to service

Indonesia’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has cleared the country’s three 737 MAX 9 aircraft to return to flight after a satisfactory series of precautionary checks. The aircraft, operated by low-budget carrier Lion Air, are of a different configuration to the MAX 9 that suffered an emergency decompression when a door plug blew out from the fuselage of an Alaska Airlines flight. Lion Air’s aircraft are equipped with a mid-cabin emergency exit door rather than the door plug and are therefore not affected by the FAA’s emergency airworthiness directive (EAD).