There were an estimated 20 million new cancer cases in 2022, with more than 35 million new cases predicted by 2050.
The number of new cancer cases globally will reach 35 million in 2050, 77 percent higher than the figure in 2022, according to predictions from the World Health Organization’s cancer agency.
A survey conducted by the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) cited tobacco, alcohol, obesity and air pollution as key factors in the predicted rise.
“Over 35 million new cancer cases are predicted in 2050,” the IARC said in a statement, a 77 percent increase from the some 20 million cases diagnosed in 2022.
“Certainly the new estimates highlight the scale of cancer today and indeed the growing burden of cancer that is predicted over the next years and decades,” Freddie Bray, head of cancer surveillance at the IARC, told Al Jazeera on Thursday.
There were an estimated 9.7 million cancer deaths in 2022, the IARC said in the statement alongside its biannual report based on data from 185 countries and 36 cancers.
Around one in five people develop cancer in their lifetimes, with one in nine men and one in 12 women dying from the disease, it added.
“The rapidly-growing global cancer burden reflects both population ageing and growth, as well as changes to people’s exposure to risk factors, several of which are associated with socioeconomic development. Tobacco, alcohol and obesity are key factors behind the increasing incidence of cancer, with air pollution still a key driver of environmental risk factors,” the IARC said.
Lower-income burden
The IARC also highlighted that the threat of cancer varies depending on where a patient lives.
The most-developed countries are expected to record the greatest increases in case numbers, with an additional 4.8 million new cases predicted in 2050 compared with 2022 estimates, the agency said.
But in terms of percentages, countries on the low end of the Human Development Index (HDI) – used by the United Nations as a marker of societal and economic development – will see the greatest proportional increase, up 142 percent.
Meanwhile, countries in the medium range are predicted to record a 99-percent increase, it said.
“One of the biggest challenges we are seeing is the proportional increases in the cancer burden are going to be most striking in the lower income, lower human development countries,” Bray told Al Jazeera.
“They are going to see a projected increase of well over doubling of the burden by 2050.
“And these are very much the countries that currently are ill-equipped to really deal with the cancer problem. And it’s only going to get bigger and there are going to be more patients in cancer hospitals in the future.”
Bray said that although there are more than 100 different cancer types, the top five cancers account for about 50 percent of cases.
“Lung cancer is the most common cancer worldwide … particularly in men, whereas breast cancer is certainly the most common cancer in women,” he said.
The IARC also said different types of cancer were now increasingly affecting populations as lifestyles change. For example, colorectal cancer is now the third most common cancer and second in terms of deaths. Colorectal cancer is linked particularly to age as well as lifestyle factors like obesity, smoking and alcohol use.
“There should be a lot more investment in the early diagnosis and screening [of cancers]. There should be a lot more investment in preventing the disease,” as well as in palliative care for people who are suffering, Bray said.
A group of deep-sea explorers say they may have located the wreckage of Amelia Earhart’s plane that went missing over the Pacific Ocean nine decades ago. They hope to prove their sonar image is the key to a mystery that has puzzled aviation experts and adventurers for decades.
Parents and lawmakers say executives are not doing enough to thwart dangers, including sexual exploitation and bullying.
CEOs from Meta, TikTok, X and other companies have been grilled by United States lawmakers over the dangers that children and teens face using the social media platforms.
On Wednesday, the executives testified before the US Senate Judiciary Committee amid a torrent of anger from parents and lawmakers that companies are not doing enough to thwart online dangers for children, such as blocking sexual predators and preventing teen suicide.
“They’re responsible for many of the dangers our children face online,” US Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, who chairs the committee, said in opening remarks. “Their design choices, their failures to adequately invest in trust and safety, their constant pursuit of engagement and profit over basic safety have all put our kids and grandkids at risk.”
Durbin cited statistics from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children non-profit group that showed financial “sextortion”, in which a predator tricks a minor into sending explicit photos and videos, had skyrocketed last year.
The committee also played a video in which children spoke about being victimised on the social media platforms. “I was sexually exploited on Facebook,” said one child in the video, who appeared in shadow.
“Mr Zuckerberg, you and the companies before us, I know you don’t mean it to be so, but you have blood on your hands,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, referring to Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram. “You have a product that’s killing people.”
Zuckerberg testified along with X CEO Linda Yaccarino, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew and Discord CEO Jason Citron.
Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg looks at X Corp’s CEO Linda Yaccarino and TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew as they raise their hands to be sworn in during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on online child sexual exploitation at the US Capitol in Washington, DC [Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters]
X’s Yaccarino said the company supported the STOP CSAM Act, a bill introduced by Durbin that seeks to hold tech companies accountable for child sexual abuse material and would allow victims to sue tech platforms and app stores. The bill is one of several aimed at addressing child safety. None have become law.
X, formerly Twitter, has come under heavy criticism since Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk bought the platform and loosened moderation policies. This week, the company blocked searches for pop singer Taylor Swift after fake sexually explicit images of Swift spread on the platform.
Wednesday also marked the first appearance by TikTok CEO Chew before US lawmakers since March, when the Chinese-owned short video app company faced harsh questions, including some suggesting the app was damaging children’s mental health.
“We make careful product design choices to help make our app inhospitable to those seeking to harm teens,” Chew said, adding that TikTok’s community guidelines strictly prohibit anything that puts “teenagers at risk of exploitation or other harm – and we vigorously enforce them”.
At the hearing, the executives touted existing safety tools on their platforms and the work they’ve done with non-profits and law enforcement to protect minors.
Ahead of their testimony, Meta and X also announced new measures in anticipation of the heated session.
Yet, child health advocates say the social media companies have failed repeatedly to protect minors.
“When you’re faced with really important safety and privacy decisions, the revenue in the bottom line should not be the first factor that these companies are considering,” said Zamaan Qureshi, co-chair of Design It For Us, a youth-led coalition advocating for safer social media.
“These companies have had opportunities to do this before. They failed to do that, so independent regulation needs to step in.”
Hawaiians respond to a threat of nuclear attack and a survivor tells of coping with the Hiroshima bombing.
It is 41 minutes and 40 seconds to midnight in Honolulu. Heat rises from the asphalt in Hawaii’s capital. It is a beautiful day and people are out for strolls and running errands. Suddenly, sounds of sirens cut through the air. TV broadcasts, radio shows, and mobile phones are flooded with the following message: “Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.” Panic descends throughout the island. Thousands of goodbye messages to loved ones are sent – even ones containing dramatic declarations or confessions. It took authorities almost one hour to let people know this was an error. We hear from people who tell us how they coped with the frightening events of this day in 2018.
We also hear of the harrowing experience of surviving an actual nuclear attack. Toshiko Tanaka was six years old when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on her city of Hiroshima. “I remember the horror of that day: blinding light like thousands of strobe lights, my body thrown to the ground.” The atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 were the only time nuclear weapons have been used. Today, about 120,000 Hibakusha – survivors of the bombings – are still alive. Tanaka tells us of her life as one of these survivors, and of the work those bombings inspired her to do. She is 84 years old now and has dedicated her life to fighting against nuclear proliferation.
New Delhi, India – The website of Hindutva Watch, a United States-based independent research project that documents hate crimes against religious minorities in India, is no longer accessible in India, days after government officials warned its founder that they might block it.
The website of India Hate Lab, another initiative dedicated to exclusively tracking hate speech in the country, can also no longer be accessed in India even though both platforms are available outside the country.
“We received communication from MEITY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) under the IT Act last week regarding the potential blocking of India Hate Lab and Hindutva Watch,” Raqib Hameed Naik, the founder of both projects, told Al Jazeera, referring to India’s Information Technology (IT) Act.
On January 29, Naik was informed by users in India that both websites had become inaccessible on multiple servers, he said. “Currently, I am exploring legal options,” Naik added.
The government issued notices for blocking the websites under section 69A of the controversial IT Act, which empowers authorities to prevent the public from accessing information citing the “interest of sovereignty, integrity, and security” of India. The Supreme Court of India in 2022 had struck down another section of the IT Act that allowed the government to prosecute people for sending “offensive” messages online – multiple governments, across political parties, had used that section to arrest everyday civilian critics, from a cartoonist to a chemistry teacher.
Al Jazeera reached out to India’s IT ministry for comments but has not yet received a response.
Naik, a Kashmiri journalist living in the US since 2020, launched the Hindutva Watch website in April 2021. He is joined by 12 volunteers, spread across five countries, who work through different time zones to keep up with the documentation of rising hate crimes in India.
Since its launch, Hindutva Watch has grown into a rare database that documents hate speech and violence against India’s religious minorities, which have escalated everywhere from major cities to smaller towns, yet often receive little mainstream press coverage in the country or outside it. The project has been documenting two to four hate events daily, nearly double the number of reported incidents from a year ago.
Its critics, however, accuse Hindutva Watch, Naik and their coverage of being driven by a bias against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its political ideology, called Hindutva.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, right, meets Elon Musk, chief of X, in New York, Tuesday, June 20, 2023 [Narendra Modi Youtube Channel via AP]
Censorship fears
The blocking of the websites comes two weeks after X – formerly known as Twitter – withheld the account of Hindutva Watch in India on January 16, following the government’s order under the IT Act. The X account of India Hate Lab was still accessible in India as of Wednesday morning.
“While shocking, it’s not surprising, considering Prime Minister Modi regime’s history of suppressing free press & critical voices,” Naik wrote on X on January 16, reacting to the ban. “The suppression of our account in India only fuels our determination to continue our work undeterred.”
Critics of the government have pointed to a growing climate of censorship involving X accounts in India since the platform was taken over by billionaire Elon Musk in November 2022. Last year, the company also withheld the accounts of US-based human rights groups – the Indian American Muslim Council and Hindus for Human Rights in India – in response to legal demands by the Modi government.
“Not only is the Indian state rewriting history, the government does not want information, or any kind of documentation, of violence against minority groups,” said Suchitra Vijayan, an author and founder of The Polis Project, a New York-based research and media organisation.
Describing Hindutva Watch as an “institution”, Vijayan said the group of volunteers had effectively used social media to highlight rights abuses against minorities in India. “The Indian government is literally going after anybody still thinking, writing and documenting,” she noted.
The blocking of Hindutva Watch’s website in India is a part of a larger pattern, including “the absolute destruction of media in Kashmir,” she said, referring to a crackdown on independent news outlets and journalists in the region, which is claimed by both India and Pakistan and that both partly control. “A story of David versus Goliath,” she added.
India’s ranking in the 2023 World Press Freedom Index slipped to 161 out of 180 countries, from 150 in 2022, as per the annual report by global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF). In 2014, when Modi came to power, India stood at 140.
“In any democracy, this kind of violence against minorities should be 24/7 news. But it has been completely wiped out [in India],” Vijayan said. “Even an act of documenting [it] is seen as a threat.”
Supporters of India’s ruling BJP light firecrackers as they celebrate winning elections in three states in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Monday, December 4, 2023 [Mukhtar Khan/AP]
Run-up to election
In a September 2023 report, Hindutva Watch analysed more than 255 documented incidents of hate speech aimed at Muslims and noted that 80 percent of the events took place in states governed by Modi’s BJP.
About 70 percent of the incidents took place in states scheduled to hold elections in 2023 and 2024, the report added. The majority of the hate speech events mentioned conspiracy theories as well as calls for violence and socioeconomic boycotts against Muslims.
India is headed towards a national election, likely to be held in April-May 2024. “There is a huge concern in the way that hate speeches will be used to incite people in the run-up to the elections,” said Geeta Seshu, an editor at Free Speech Collective, a media watchdog. Rather than obstructing the work of such projects, she added, the government should “see them as allies and not adversaries”.
“Is the government trying to shield people that are committing illegal acts against the Constitution?” asked Seshu. “This is a classic ‘shoot the messenger’. By criminalising Hindutva Watch, they are clamping down on reality; censoring the reality.”
In the past, two databases attempted to monitor hate crimes, initiated by the Hindustan Times newspaper and IndiaSpend. Both stopped operating, in 2017 and 2019 respectively, after coming under heavy criticism from Hindu nationalists.
Recent posts by Hindutva Watch on X and their website document hate speech by a BJP leader calling for violence against Muslims in Maharashtra as well as an attack on a Christian couple by a Hindutva mob in the southern state of Karnataka — reports that are now inaccessible in India.
“It is not easy for these groups to secure any kind of action against these hate speeches but Hindutva Watch has a very strong network [of sources to report],” said Seshu. “It is an autocratic regime that silences any kind of independent point of view. The dangers to the larger democratic functioning of India are something we all need to wake up to.”
Republican lawmakers in the United States have amplified their calls for President Joe Biden to take decisive action against Iran, after a drone attack killed three US troops along the Jordan-Syria border.
But foreign policy experts and advocates fear the political pressure may send the US down an increasingly dangerous path towards direct confrontation with Iran.
“I think it’s really scary how far the rhetoric has come and what that means for the decisions that policymakers will make,” said Jamal Abdi, the president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC).
“It really does feel like the frog being boiled in the water situation,” he said, referring to the allegory of an amphibian unaware it is being cooked in slowly warming water.
For his part, Biden has promised the US will “hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner [of] our choosing”. On Tuesday, he told reporters he had decided how to proceed, without providing further information.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, White House National Security spokesman John Kirby maintained the US is not seeking direct confrontation with Iran. He also did not link Iran directly to the attack.
Nevertheless, Kirby said the US would respond appropriately to the “Iran-backed group” responsible for the deaths.
Department of Defense spokesperson Sabrina Singh, meanwhile, told reporters the attack “has the footprints” of the Iran-aligned Kataib Hezbollah group — but that the agency’s assessment remained ongoing.
“We don’t seek a war with Iran. We don’t seek to widen this conflict,” Singh said. “We have said and we will continue to call out the fact that Iran does fund and equip these groups and provide them the capabilities that they use to attack our service members, whether it be Iraq, Syria or Jordan.”
On Tuesday, Kataib Hezbollah released a statement saying it had suspended its attacks against the US.
Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder also reiterated the administration’s stance on Tuesday, saying that the US had repeatedly “called on the Iranian proxy groups to stop their attacks. They have not, and so, we will respond in a time and manner of our choosing.”
‘Devastating military retaliation’
US military bases have faced more than 160 attacks since Israel’s war in Gaza began on October 7, but the drone attack on Sunday marked the first time US personnel have been killed.
That fact has kicked hawkish members of the Republican Party into overdrive, as they appeal for more direct military action against Iran.
Senator Lindsey Graham, for instance, called on the Biden administration to “strike targets of significance inside Iran, not only as reprisal for the killing of our forces but as deterrence against future aggression”.
Senator Tom Cotton likewise pushed for “devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East”.
Other right-wing figures have also chimed in, including Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, who called for “striking directly against Iranian targets and its leadership”.
Stephen Miles, the president of Win Without War, a group that advocates for progressive US foreign policy, described the reaction as the equivalent of a knee-jerk.
He quipped that some Republicans call for bombing Iran when they “think they lose their keys”.
He considers the latest Republican appeals as adding fuel to an already hazardous situation. The Biden administration, he explained, already pursues a strategy of retaliatory strikes on groups that receive support from Iran in Iraq and Syria, as well as the Houthis in Yemen.
That, in turn, could ratchet tensions over the Gaza conflict into a regional war.
“I think, a lot of times, people think of these situations as big ‘set piece’ wars where the US makes the decision to intervene, and we pre-position all these troops and all these assets and go to war,” Miles told Al Jazeera.
“The far more likely path … is that these kinds of tit-for-tat retaliatory strikes have the potential to really grow far beyond that.”
“It doesn’t matter if folks in Washington or Tehran might not want a broader regional war,” he added. “These things can take on take on a life of their own.”
Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, a think tank, said the Republicans calling for direct retaliation against Iran have fallen into two camps: Some “truly want war”, while others are simply attacking Biden’s perceived vulnerability during an election year.
For the latter camp, a hawkish approach can pay dividends regardless of whether Biden acts.
“They can push Biden to take military action, which I think they understand is not going to work out well,” he said. “Or Biden will not strike Iran, and then they will attack him for being weak. So they see this as a win-win from a political standpoint.”
Looming presidential election
The death of US troops has already brought Biden’s Iran policy to the fore of the 2024 presidential race.
Republican presidential frontrunner and former President Donald Trump has seized on the moment, saying the attack “would never have happened” if he were in the White House. He has described his approach as “peace through strength”.
But critics have pointed out that the Trump administration’s decision to assassinate Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in Iraq on January 3, 2020, brought the two countries to the brink of war. Since then, US bases in the Middle East have been regularly targeted, sometimes in explicit retaliation for the assassination.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has also called for “surgical strikes” on Iranian assets and officials outside of Iran.
“There is this message being trotted out in an election year that somehow Trump was really tough on Iran, and that was beneficial, and Biden has been weak,” said the National Iranian American Council’s Abdi, whose group has long pushed for diplomatic solutions to the tense relations between the US and Iran.
Abdi added that some Republicans have already sought to connect the attack with Biden’s wider Iran policy, which has largely resembled Trump’s, despite pledges to take a more diplomacy-forward approach.
But there could be a “political imperative” for Biden to “take retaliatory action that would be regarded as stronger than what the United States has done thus far”, according to Brian Finucane, a senior US adviser at Crisis Group, a think tank that seeks to prevent and resolve conflict.
“The emphasis seems to be on avenging the US soldiers who were killed yesterday,” he said.
“It’s notable that the loudest voices in Congress are not those calling for restraint or calling into question the legal authority for the US to be engaged in these conflicts with Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria, saying nothing of the conflict with the Houthis.”
For his part, Parsi at the Quincy Institute called Biden’s predicament — and the risks of further escalation — “predictable”.
Biden’s continued support for Israel and refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza has inflamed tensions in the Middle East and created fodder for those seeking direct confrontation with Iran, he explained.
“Biden should have been more cautious from the outset,” Parsi said. “We would not have this escalation that we have today had there been a ceasefire much earlier.”
The US reimposed sanctions after a ban blocking the candidacy of the opposition in Venezuela’s elections was upheld.
Venezuela has criticised Washington’s decision to reimpose oil and gas sanctions and warned it could halt deportation flights for Venezuelan migrants who are in the United States without documents.
“All of Venezuela rejects the rude and improper blackmail and ultimatum expressed by the US government,” Vice President Delcy Rodriguez wrote on X.
“If they take the wrong step of intensifying the economic aggression against Venezuela … as of February 13 repatriation flights for Venezuelan migrants would be immediately cancelled.”
The US began repatriating Venezuelan migrants on chartered flights in October, after a deal was struck between Nicolas Maduro and President Joe Biden for the “orderly, safe and legal repatriation” of undocumented Venezuelan migrants.
Rodriguez said that all other areas of cooperation would be reviewed as a countermeasure to the “deliberate attempt to strike a blow to the Venezuelan oil and gas industry”.
Venezuela toda rechaza el grosero e indebido chantaje y ultimátum manifestado por el gobierno de EEUU. Si dan el paso en falso de intensificar la agresión económica contra Venezuela, a pedido de los extremistas lacayos en el país, a partir del 13 de febrero quedarían revocados de… https://t.co/cLo5Di2Dck
The rejection comes in response to the United States’s reimposition of sanctions on Caracas this week. Washington took action after Venezuela’s top court upheld a ban blocking the candidacy of the leading opposition hopeful in a presidential election later this year.
The US Department of the Treasury on Monday gave US entities until February 13 to wind down transactions with Venezuelan state-owned miner Minerven.
The US Department of State said on Tuesday that Washington does not plan to renew a licence that has allowed Venezuela’s oil to freely flow to its chosen destinations.
“Actions by Nicolas Maduro and his representatives in Venezuela, including the arrest of members of the democratic opposition and the barring of candidates from competing in this year’s presidential election, are inconsistent with the agreements signed in Barbados,” the State Department said in a statement.
“Absent progress between Maduro and his representatives and the opposition Unitary Platform … the United States will not renew the license when it expires on April 18,” the State Department said, referring to General License 44, which provides relief to Venezuela’s oil and gas sector.
The US, which first imposed oil sanctions on Venezuela in 2019, had granted sanctions relief for the OPEC member country in October in recognition of a deal signed in Barbados with President Nicolas Maduro’s administration that included releasing political prisoners, allowing international observers and setting conditions for a fair presidential election.
Venezuela is prepared for any scenario including the reimposition of US sanctions on its crude and gas exports, Oil Minister Pedro Tellechea said.
The US would also feel the effect of any reimposed energy sanctions on Venezuela, Tellechea told reporters, adding that the country would not “kneel down” just because someone tried to dictate the countries with which it can do business.
The US president says he does not wish to trigger a regional war but will respond to the first fatal attack on US troops.
President Joe Biden says he has decided on a response to a deadly drone strike on US forces in Jordan, but stressed he does not seek a wider war in the Middle East.
“Yes,” Biden told journalists at the White House on Tuesday when asked if he had decided on his response to the strike that killed three US troops at a military advance post near the Jordan-Syria border on Sunday.
The US president did not elaborate on his decision, which came after consultations with top advisers at the White House.
John Kirby, the White House national security spokesperson, told reporters on board Air Force One as Biden flew to Florida that the US could respond more than once.
“It’s fair for you to expect that we will respond in an appropriate fashion and it is very possible that what you’ll see is a tiered approach here, not just a single action, but essentially multiple actions,” he said.
The president previously accused Iran-backed groups of carrying out the first fatal attack on US forces in the Middle East since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza in October.
While he did not give further details on what actions he would take, when asked about concerns that taking on Iran could inflame a broader conflict he said, “I don’t think we need a wider war in the Middle East. That’s not what I’m looking for.”
Asked whether Iran was to blame for the attack on Jordan, Biden replied, “I do hold them responsible, in the sense that they’re supplying the weapons to the people who did it.”
He added that “we’ll have that discussion” when asked if a direct link to Iran had been established.
Tehran has said it had nothing to do with the attack and denied US accusations it supported armed groups behind the strike.
The 81-year-old US president is facing growing pressure during an election year, with Republicans urging the Democrat to punish Iran for the strike, some going as far as to call for direct attacks on Iran itself.
Biden’s administration believes hitting Iranian territory could cause the region to erupt, with strikes on Iranian-backed militias and possibly on Iranian Revolutionary Guard facilities in other countries more likely, US media reported.
The White House on Monday promised a “very consequential” response.
Tensions have escalated sharply in the region following the Jordan attack, already unstable after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s devastating response in Gaza.
In recent weeks, Iran-backed armed groups have intensified their attacks on US military bases in Iraq and neighbouring Syria in response to the Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip.
The Iran-backed groups have described their strikes as retaliation for Washington’s support for the Israeli war on Gaza and say they aim to push US forces out of the region.
The US, in recent months, has struck targets in Iraq, Syria and Yemen to respond to attacks on American forces in the region and to deter Iranian-backed Houthi rebels from continuing to threaten commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
The Kremlin, a close ally of Tehran, on Tuesday called for a de-escalation in the Middle East.
“In our view, the overall level of tension is very alarming and, on the contrary, now is the time for steps to de-escalate tensions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow.
“This is the only thing that can help us prevent further spreading of the conflict, especially the Middle East conflict, and somehow achieve de-confliction and de-escalation.”
China also warned against a “cycle of retaliation” in the Middle East.
Beijing has close ties with both Russia and Iran, with all three seeking to challenge what they say is Washington’s global hegemony.
A door blowout aboard an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-9 MAX was not how many expected the first week of 2024 to unfold. However, following the incident, inspections and investigations have uncovered further production flaws at Boeing, raising concerns about quality control for the major manufacturer, alongside safety.
Since the Alaska Airlines incident, 171 Boeing 737-9 MAX planes were grounded for almost three weeks. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) launched an investigation into production practices at the planemaker, Alaska Airlines increased their oversight into Boeing, key suppliers were under fire, and Boeing, in firefighting mode, said it had “implemented immediate actions to strengthen quality”.
Boeing and Alaska Airlines are now staring at lawsuits while Boeing’s customers are contemplating a business plan without some of its planes.
On board the flight
Inside AS1282, the Alaska Airlines flight that experienced the blowout, the overarching theme for the 171 passengers and six crew was chaos, Jennifer L Homendy, the chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), told journalists in a news conference.
At the front of the aircraft, the cockpit door blew open following the rapid depressurisation. This was something the pilots weren’t aware could take place. Additionally, the pilots struggled to communicate clearly with air traffic controllers who attempted to get the plane safely to an airport.
Obtaining a full understanding of the cockpit events remains complicated because the cockpit voice recorder overwrote itself before retrieval, as NTSB Chair Jennifer L Homendy confirmed.
Further down the cabin, passengers reported that when the door blew out, the “bang was loud enough to blast through noise-cancelling Beats headphones and Apple AirPods and harm passengers’ ears”, as per a lawsuit filed by four passengers against Boeing and seen by Al Jazeera. The blowout caused “fear, distress, anxiety, trauma, physical pain and other injuries”, the lawsuit said.
Similar to the pilots, the cabin crew struggled to communicate with each other and grasp the unfolding situation, including the damage, per The Washington Post.
Ultimately, the rising stress levels inside the cabin resulted in passengers believing the circumstances unfolding “was a prelude to the plane’s destruction and their own likely death”, as per the lawsuit.
In a now unavailable video, TikTok user @imsocorny, who was seated towards the front in flight AS1282, described the blowout as a “loud bang and jolt, and then a whoosh of air”.
This was followed by a commotion towards the back of the plane where the blowout occurred. But as the oxygen masks dropped and terrified passengers grabbed to put them on obstructing their view, it wasn’t clear what was going on. This left passengers believing that they could begin nosediving at any second.
The door plug that blew out was removed from the aircraft for repair and then improperly reinstalled, The Seattle Times reported, citing a whistleblower.
Lawsuits
Four passengers have filed a lawsuit against Boeing and Alaska Airlines and more may join [NTSB/Handout via Reuters]
Four passengers filed a lawsuit against Boeing and Alaska Airlines on January 16, following the incident. These plaintiffs seek to “recover damages caused by personal injuries while onboard Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 on January 5, 2024”, their lawyer Mark Lindquist, told Al Jazeera.
Lindquist has previously represented dozens of victim families following Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashes in 2018 and 2019, when planes went down in Indonesia and Ethiopia, respectively.
At the time those families and Lindquist hoped “Boeing learned their lesson from the MAX 8 crashes and improved their quality control”. However, Lindquist says that the newest case into the US manufacturer “demonstrates Boeing still has significant and dangerous quality control issues that need to be fixed”.
The Alaska Airlines door blowout was “an extreme, life-threatening incident”, and it blind luck that nobody died, said Lindquist.
Fourteen more passengers have contacted Lindquist asking for representation since he filed the case on behalf of the four passengers. Lindquist added that he will likely file an amended complaint with new clients and new information at some point.
Lindquist expects more legal firms to get involved in legal action against Boeing and Alaska Airlines with the aim of holding them accountable and “make sure this doesn’t happen again to anyone”, he said.
Boeing didn’t respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.
Impact on Boeing customers
Alaska Airlines and United Airlines are the leading airlines impacted by the 737-9 MAX grounding. To make matters worse, the pair are the two largest operators of the variant.
Despite this, their experiences with the grounding differed. Alaska has 65 737-9 MAX planes, compared to the 79 at United Airlines. However, Alaska’s overall percentage of cancelled flights was higher as the 737-9 MAX represents 20 percent of their total fleet. For United Airlines, the 737-9 MAX represents only 8 percent based on fleet data from planespotters.net.
In a filing, United said that it’ll post an adjusted loss between 35 cents and 85 cents a share for the first quarter of 2024. These results follow the 737 MAX grounding. Meanwhile, Alaska Airlines expects the ordeal to cost $150m.
Scott Hamilton, founder and managing director of Leeham Company, an aviation consulting company, said, “65 airplanes represent something like 20 percent of its fleet. You can’t remove 20 percent of the capacity for long before moving into a loss”.
These frustrations over groundings have resulted in executives from the two airlines reconsidering their future choice of aircraft.
Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci told NBC News that while it still planned to order the largest variant in the MAX series, the 737-10, decisions on fleet mix will only come once it was certified. A timeline for the 737-10s approval is unclear.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby similarly told CNBC that they were the “biggest customer of Boeing in the world”, and they “need Boeing to succeed”. However, they’ll now be building a plan that doesn’t have the 737-10 in it for a considerable period.
Internally, the best-case scenario at United is a delay of five or more years for the 737-10. To cope with these delays at United, it “probably means we’ll change the order book up, there are alternative means of airplanes instead of MAX 10s for the next few years, it also means we won’t grow quite as fast”, per their CEO.
Alaska Airlines door blowout was ‘an extreme, life-threatening incident’ said a lawyer for some of the passengers [File: Stephen Brashear/Getty Images]
An opportunity for Airbus?
As frustrations grow toward Boeing, the question is if industry competitor Airbus can capitalise on that and capture some of that business.
It’s not as simple as that, warned Hamilton, and on the contrary, Airbus will struggle to capitalise because of its success.
“The A320 line is sold out to 2030, and sales extend beyond 2030. Airbus could not provide new aeroplanes in any great quantity even if airlines came knocking today,” Hamilton said.
So no matter how frustrated these airlines may be over quality issues, they may have no real choice but to stick with Boeing.
“The airlines basically have to stick with Boeing whether they want to or not if they want 737-size airplanes this decade,” said Hamilton.
Richard Aboulafia, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory, said the Airbus backlog and Boeing’s status means that despite the quality of aircraft, those seeking to place aircraft orders are, to at least some degree, stuck with Boeing. He added: “It’s possible that Boeing management simply doesn’t care. They might have reasoned that while Airbus is quickly gaining ground, that’s beyond their time horizon.”
However, the latest problems are greatly endangering the cynical calculation predicted by management, he said.
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