Skift Take

Boeing's rough January 2024 was marked by the blowout aboard an Alaska Airlines flight, but that's far from its only major problem.

Rashaad Jorden

The January blowout on a Boeing Max 9 on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 was just the latest in the series of issues Boeing has had with its Max aircraft.

That incident drove the Federal Aviation Administration to order the temporary grounding of certain Boeing 737 Maxes and increase oversight of the planemaker. The FAA said on January 24 that it's halting any production expansion of the 737 Max.

Alaska and United, which fly the Max 9 in the U.S., are now back to flying the jet after canceling thousands of flights throughout January. But that won't be the end of the story: Investigations are ongoing, as is the political fallout.

Here's a timeline from Skift news coverage of how we got here.

October 2018: Boeing 737 Max 8 Crashes in Indonesia

Lion Air flight JT610, a Boeing 737 Max 8 jet, crashed into the sea off Jakarta shortly after departing on a domestic flight, killing all 189 passengers. Investigators said automated systems probably believed erroneously that the aircraft had stalled and needed to descend to increase airspeed.

Skift reported the following month that Boeing and FAA asked airlines, including United, to better prepare crews to understand the 737 Max's automated system. The 737 Max