Vietnam has not suspended Boeing 737 MAX 9 jetliners from flying over its airspace as it has yet to receive a notice from the U.S. of ceasing the use of such aircraft following a cabin panel blowout last week, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV).

The CAAV has so far received no announcement from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) after the incident in which an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet had to land urgently due to a safety incident last Friday, CAAV director Dinh Viet Thang told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Sunday.

The plane in question, with 171 passengers and six crew members aboard, was climbing following take-off from Portland, Oregon en route to Ontario, California when a piece of fuselage tore off the left side of the jet, forcing pilots to turn back and land safely, according to Reuters.

In principle, once the FAA, as the aviation authority of the manufacturing country of Boeing 737 MAX 9, has announced suspending the operation of this type of aircraft for investigation, all airlines using it will strictly comply with the suspension, Thang stated.

The CAAV has therefore yet to temporarily bar such aircraft from flying through Vietnamese airspace, the aviation chief said.

To date, no Vietnamese airline has operated Boeing 737 MAX 9 jetliners, Thang affirmed.

Vietnam’s budget carrier Vietjet has recently signed a contract to buy such planes but has yet to take delivery, while national flag air carrier Vietnam Airlines has only signed a memorandum of understanding on the purchase of 50 aircraft of this type, he added.

After the mentioned incident, the FAA temporarily grounded 171 Boeing 737 MAX 9 jetliners on Saturday for safety checks, whereas the agency did not specify the precise inspection requirements or provide detailed information on inspection intervals.

Mandatory inspections will take approximately four to eight hours per aircraft, the FAA stated.

Boeing has issued a statement agreeing with the FAA’s decision and saying its technical team is supporting the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation into the incident that happened to the Alaska Airlines.

Vietnam once closed its airspace to Boeing’s aircraft four years ago after an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8, bound for Kenya’s capital city of Nairobi, crashed on March 10, 2019, killing 149 passengers and eight crew members.  

Another Boeing plane crash occurred on October 19, 2018, when Indonesia’s Lion Air jet of the same type fell down offshore the country, taking the lives of all 189 people on board.

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