FAA orders grounding of some Boeing 737 planes after an Alaska Airlines flight lost part of its fuselage in air

• The FAA announced it's grounding some Boeing 737 planes for inspection.
• The announcement follows an Alaska Airlines flight losing part of its fuselage in air.
• The FAA says 171 planes will be grounded and inspections will take around eight hours each.

The Federal Aviation Administration announced on Saturday that it's temporarily grounding some Boeing 737 Max 9 planes after an Alaska Airlines flight's window blew out in the air.

The FAA announced the move on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Saturday saying that it would require 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 planes to undergo certain inspections before they can be operated by US airlines.

"The Emergency Airworthiness Directive that will be issued shortly will require operators to inspect aircraft before further flight that do not meet the inspection cycles specified to the EAD," the agency said in a statement. "The required inspections will take around four to eight hours per aircraft."

The FAA's announcement follows the decision by Alaska Airlines to ground its entire Boeing 737 fleet on Friday. Earlier on Friday, Alaska Airlines flight 1282 had to make an emergency landing when a window and part of the fuselage tore off the plane.

Photos provided and shared on social media show a large chunk of the plane's fuselage missing from its back left side. One video posted on TikTok shows passengers wearing oxygen masks as the plane descends with the hole on the plane's side visible.

Alaska Airlines previously told Business Insider that it is conducting an investigation.

"The aircraft landed safely back at Portland International Airport with 174 guests and 6 crew members," the airline said in a statement. "We are investigating what happened and will share more information as it becomes available."

In a follow-up statement on X, the airline apologized for the incident and said passengers who have had their travel affected by the groundings can rebook their flights, place the value of their ticket on their mileage plan for use in the future, or request a refund.