An FAA airworthiness directive that took effect on September 10 puts 471 U.S.-registered Boeing 737 Max jets, the 737-8, 737-9 and 737-8200, under a regime of repeated inspections for cracks at the forward galley door. The Federal Aviation Administration wants the fuselage skin and a reinforcing strap around that door checked for existing repairs and, where cracks or repairs turn up, examined again and again with eddy current probes.
The cracks the order describes have not, by Boeing’s own account, been found on a Max. They were found on older airplanes, and the directive is the regulator’s decision that a similar design is reason enough to look.
A strap at the corner of a door cutout
The part at issue is called a bear strap: a doubler of metal bonded and riveted around the fuselage skin at a door opening, spreading the load that would otherwise concentrate at the sharp corners of the cutout. The directive, numbered 2026-15-11, concerns cracks in the strap at the forward upper corner of the forward galley door cutout. Left alone, the FAA says, such cracking “may lead to the inability of the principal structural element to sustain limit loads and adversely affect the structural integrity of the airplane.”
Limit load is the highest force an airplane is expected to meet in service, so a strap that cannot carry it has stopped doing its job. The directive orders an external general visual inspection of the fuselage skin for existing repairs, followed by on-condition actions: detailed inspections for skin cracking, high frequency eddy current checks at fastener locations and door corner edges, and low frequency eddy current checks of the strap itself. All of it follows Boeing Alert Requirements Bulletin 737-53A1408 RB, dated December 20, 2024, and counted from the directive’s effective date rather than the bulletin’s issue date.
A precedent already written into the 737NG fleet
The Max order is a sequel. The FAA’s AD 2024-06-01, effective May 22, 2024, covered the 737-600, -700, -800, -900 and -900ER after reports of cracks in the same strap on Next Generation airplanes. It warned that cracks could lengthen until the skin and strap sever, risking rapid decompression.
When the agency proposed the Max rule in November 2025, it recorded Boeing’s finding that “high operating stresses in the fuselage skin and bear strap due to stress concentration at the corner of the door cutout” caused the Next Generation cracking. It also recorded that no cracks had been reported on Max models, which share a similar design and so were judged susceptible.
Boeing has taken the same line publicly. Its statement to Fox Business said the cracking was first identified on 737 Next Generation aircraft and “has not been seen on the Max fleet,” that the inspections were extended because of a similar design and manufacturing process, and that Boeing has been working with operators on the issue for six years. The company also said it is making manufacturing changes.
Three commenters and one unanswered question
Only three parties filed comments on the proposal, and their positions map the disagreements neatly. Boeing supported the rule without changes. United Airlines asked whether a blended-out repair that stays inside the Structural Repair Manual’s allowable damage limits counts as a “repair found” that triggers alternative inspection instructions. The FAA answered that Condition 1 “applies to any repair, which includes blend out repairs accomplished per the SRM within the allowable damage limits,” so even a repair that was legal when made must be evaluated to see whether the inspection intervals still hold.
The third comment was the sharpest. The Foundation for Aviation Safety asked why, “if a structural defect is important enough to immediately ground an airplane after it is detected,” the inspection that would find it is not done much earlier. The FAA replied that compliance times were set so any crack is caught and repaired before it reaches critical length, with several chances to detect it along the way. It pointed to Boeing’s manufacturing changes for future production as the root-cause response. That reply keeps the order aimed at the airplanes already flying, and it leaves the Foundation’s underlying question about timing to the compliance schedules in the bulletin, which the Federal Register notice incorporates by reference rather than reprints.
The bill, and the airline records that matter most
The FAA puts the initial visual inspection at one work-hour, $85 per airplane, or $40,035 across all 471. The detailed and eddy current inspections run up to $340 per airplane per cycle, up to $160,140 per cycle for the fleet. The agency says it lacks data to price crack repairs or alternative inspections, which is where the real money would sit if any Max turns up damaged.
Because the first step is a records-driven search for existing repairs, the airline files decide who gets which follow-up. An operator that has quietly blended out a nick near that door corner must now put it on the list. The FLYING Magazine account quotes the directive’s own summary: it “requires an inspection of the fuselage skin for existing repairs and applicable on-condition actions.”
The FAA names Luis Cortez-Muniz, an aviation safety engineer in Des Moines, Washington, as the contact for the directive, and the legal force behind it is plain: the agency defines an airworthiness directive as a legally enforceable regulation issued under 14 CFR part 39. Whether the Max fleet ever produces the first crack is the open question the eddy current probes are there to answer.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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