Alaska Airlines pilot who safely landed plane after panel blew out says Boeing unfairly blamed him

The Alaska Airlines pilot who has been universally praised as a hero for safely landing a jet after a door plug panel flew off shortly after takeoff is suing Boeing because he believes the plane maker wrongly tried to blame him and the rest of the crew.

Captain Brandon Fisher was commended by the heads of the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration and even Boeing executives for helping ensure none of the 177 people aboard flight 1282 were killed when the blowout happened in January 2024.

But Fisher's lawyers say Boeing's attempts to deflect liability in past lawsuits despite what the NTSB investigation found led to the pilot being sued by some passengers and caused him great distress. Still, experts say it's unusual for a pilot to sue like this in an incident where he wasn't seriously hurt or killed. Four flight attendants previously sued Boeing over the incident last summer.

Fisher's lawsuit says Boeing suggested it wasn't responsible because the plane was “improperly maintained or misused" by others.

“It was clear Boeing’s words were directed at Captain Fisher in attempt to paint him as the scapegoat for Boeing’s numerous failures,” Fisher’s lawyers, William Walsh and Richard Mummolo, wrote in the lawsuit filed in an Oregon court.

The NTSB investigation of the blowout found that four bolts securing what is known as the door plug panel were removed and never replaced during a repair as the Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft was being assembled. Boeing and key supplier Spirit Aerosystems, which has since been acquired by Boeing, were both implicated.

The bolts are hidden behind interior panels in the plane, so they are not something that could have been easily checked in a preflight inspection by the pilot or anyone else from the airline. NTSB investigators determined the door plug was gradually moving upward over the 154 flights prior to the incident before it ultimately flew off.

“Boeing’s lie infuriated Captain Fisher as well, as he was being castigated for his actions as opposed to being lauded,” Fisher's lawyers wrote. “Because he had flown Boeing aircraft for the entirety of his employment with Alaska Airlines, Boeing’s attempts to blame him felt like a deep, personal betrayal by a company that claimed to hold pilots in the highest regard.”

The NTSB made clear this was caused by a manufacturing issue and the crew's actions were exemplary. Experienced pilot John Cox, who is CEO of the Safety Operating Systems aviation safety consulting firm, said the crew did a remarkable job considering what they were dealing with, and no one has faulted the crew.

“I think the Boeing lawyers were kind of grasping at straws,” Cox said.

The blowout occurred minutes after the flight took off from Portland, Oregon, and created a roaring air vacuum. Seven passengers and one flight attendant sustained minor injuries, but the plane landed safely.

The 2-foot-by-4-foot (61-centimeter-by-122-centimeter) piece of fuselage covering an unused emergency exit behind the left wing had blown out. Only seven seats on the flight were unoccupied, including the two seats closest to the opening.

Boeing factory workers told NTSB investigators they felt pressured to work too fast and were asked to perform jobs they weren’t qualified for.

Fisher's lawsuit describes how he and the first officer acted quickly after losing cabin pressure when the panel blew out to fly the plane safely back to Portland while decreasing altitude and working with air traffic controllers to avoid any other planes in the area.

The airline didn't answer a question about whether Fisher is still flying for them, and the lawsuit described him as a citizen and well-respected member of the aviation community. It wasn't clear Tuesday whether he is still working as a pilot.

The head of the commercial airplane unit at Boeing at the time, Stan Deal, commended the Alaska Airlines crew for safely landing the plane in a memo to employees after the incident.

Boeing did not comment directly on this new lawsuit. But the company's CEO, Kelly Ortberg, has made improving safety a top priority ever since he took over the top job at Boeing in August 2024.

The FAA fined Boeing $3.1 million over safety violations inspectors found after the door plug incident. In October, the agency allowed Boeing to increase production of the 737 Max to 42 planes a month because inspectors were satisfied with the measures the company had taken to improve safety.

Alaska Airlines also declined to comment on the lawsuit, but said the airline remains “grateful to our crew members for the bravery and quick-thinking that they displayed on Flight 1282 in ensuring the safety of all on board.”

This story has been updated to correct the surname spelling of one of Fisher's lawyers. His name is Richard Mummolo, not Mummalo.

FILE - The door plug from the Alaska Airlines Flight 1282's Boeing 737-9 MAX airplane is shown at the National Transportation Safety Board laboratory, in Washington, July 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

File - A door plug area of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft awaiting inspection is pictured with paneling removed at the airline's facilities at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Jan. 10, 2024, in SeaTac, Wash. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson, File)

FILE - This photo released by the National Transportation Safety Board shows the door plug that fell from Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 on Jan. 8, 2024, in Portland, Ore. (National Transportation Safety Board via AP, file)

FILE - This image taken Sunday, Jan. 7, 2024, and released by the National Transportation Safety Board, shows the section of a a Boeing 737 Max where a door plug fell while Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 was in flight. (NTSB via AP, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said on social media Thursday that he is directing the federal government to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds, a move he said would help reduce mortgage rates at a time when Americans are worried about home prices.

Trump and the White House have been trying to show they are responding to voter concerns about affordability ahead of midterm elections in November. Home prices have generally risen faster than incomes because of a persistent construction shortfall, making it harder for renters to buy their first home and for existing owners to upgrade to a new property — a challenge that dates back to Trump's first term and the recovery from the housing market collapse that triggered the global financial crisis in 2008.

Trump said the two mortgage companies under government conservatorship, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have $200 billion in cash that will be used to make the purchase.

“This will drive Mortgage Rates DOWN, monthly payments DOWN, and make the cost of owning a home more affordable,” Trump posted on social media.

White House officials did not immediately respond to questions about the timelines for how purchases would occur.

The Federal Reserve has in the past bought mortgage bonds during times of economic turmoil in order to help reduce interest rates, leading many homeowners to refinance into rates of 3% or less. The low rates of the recent past make these homeowners reluctant to sell their properties, depriving the market of inventory.

“At a high level I feel this is putting a Band-Aid on a deeper issue and it probably wouldn’t lower rates enough to really undo the mortgage rate lock-in effect,” said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at the real estate brokerage Redfin.

Fairweather estimated the government purchases of mortgage debt could shave 0.25 to 0.5 percentage points off the rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage. But the purchases wouldn’t address other factors such as a chronic shortage of homes on the market, which has helped make homeownership unaffordable for many Americans, she cautioned.

Mortgage rates have been averaging around 6.2%, according to Freddie Mac, which went into conservatorship along with Fannie Mae in 2008 when the U.S. economy crashed during the Great Recession. Thirty-year mortgage rates haven't been below 6% since September 2022.

“Lowering mortgage rates by maybe a quarter point or half a point maybe will encourage more demand on the margins, but I don’t think it’s going to solve the restrictions that exist in the housing market,” Fairweather said.

There is also a risk because Trump would be spending the cash reserves that are supposed to help be a buffer against an economic downturn akin to what happened during the Great Recession. In a sense, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae could be more vulnerable if anything negative happens to the housing market, meaning Trump is betting that possibility is highly unlikely.

Separately, the Fed holds roughly $2 trillion worth of mortgage-backed securities on its balance sheet. That's down from $2.7 trillion in June 2022. The Fed began to unwind its mortgage-debt holdings as the U.S. economy recovered from the global pandemic.

Mortgage rates began to climb as inflation spiked coming out of the global pandemic, with the consumer price index hitting a four-decade high in 2022. The average mortgage rate is down from nearly 7% at the start of Trump's second term last year, yet the decrease has done little to reassure a public that feels pressure from the costs of housing, food and energy.

When interest rates fall it can become cheaper to service housing debt on a monthly basis. The reduced monthly payments can improve affordability for a period until home prices adjust in response to changes in the rates. There was roughly $21.1 trillion in outstanding mortgage debt as of the middle of last year, according to the St. Louis Federal Reserve.

Many homeowners took advantage of low interest rates during the pandemic to refinance their mortgages at rates of 3% or lower.

Trump last month said he planned to unveil housing reforms -- and on Wednesday he said he wants to block institutional investors from buying houses.

Veiga contributed from Los Angeles.

President Donald Trump points to the crowd as he walks off stage after speaking to House Republican lawmakers during their annual policy retreat, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)