Is Boeing doing quick fixes for smallish orders and rebated Max'es
On Max 9 an extra emergency exit door is replaced with a blank if you don't want it instead of not cutting the hole for it in the first place. And it was mechanically fastened instead of welded in place. And since the inner panel is just a normal panel making it impossible to do frequent checks on the blank, of course it eventually fell out taking the inner panel with it. And in this case after only 147 flights. That is less than 1 year in use. On the other hand larger (in the hundreds) and original Max orders like the one from Ryanair get its own no mentioning of Max version number (737-8200) and just uses a easily inspected normal door as it was originally designed for. This hole covered by a blank must be a financial quick fix to avoid producing 2 different versions of the airframe (with or without a door hole) and not something engineers recommended. And with it came a number of uncertainties, lets call them risks, that for the economists was a case of numbercrunchi...