This seems like a potentially much worse problem than the OP topic.

Forget to turn the engine heat off in certain conditions and the engine pylon might melt off, with a possibility of the engine smacking the plane as it detaches?

I guess (?) this must be an extremely unlikey possbility.

I certainly don't believe Boeing when they say "but we'll totally fix this by 2026" (after a couple hundred planes are in the air)

Insane that Boeing still has the same CEO. Insane that Boeing didn't rebrand the 737 MAX after the whole debacle. Who knows what caused this door event, could be a systemic problem, or a one-off bad luck (bad metallurgy in the bolts). Either way, if they had rebranded the 737 MAX and this was the 'Boeing Stratoliner' or something like that the press wouldn't be nearly as bad on this event. But the people running this company are obviously incompetent.

The CEO was replaced after the MCAS debacle, in early 2020.

There was an attempt to rebrand as "737-8", "737-9" etc which didn't seem to fully take off. I have seen safety cards labeled that way.

You're right about the CEO, but the replaced him with the Chairman from the same time period. None of these C-Suite bean counter types are special enough to be worth keeping around that they shouldn't have found someone completely now. As for rebranding, all the planes still say MAX on them, and Boeing still proudly keeps the MAX name. Silly.

The problem is that when you stop branding the MAX airplanes, now you lump the NGs in with the problem children.

The general public isn't savvy enough to tell the difference. NBC initially reported it as a 747 MAX. Most people can't tell the difference between an A320 and an A380. A completely new name and suddenly this is just a one-off incident rather than reminding people of the Ethiopian and Lion Air accidents and all the drama for years about that.

​​​​​​Maybe it's still under warranty?

No kidding?

So we can't blame this on a passenger trying to open the door? Crazy. This is a bigger problem than I thought

Depends on what they find with the inspections. That new of plane I would bet on bad quality control over some type of fatigue issue.

John Ostrower is one of the most respected US aerospace journalists. Wall Street Journal and CNN aerospace editor