Still, passengers on an Alaska Airlines flight over the weekend are entitled to ask whether Boeing is taking its commitment to ventilation too literally after they were confronted by a gaping hole in the side of the plane shortly after take-off. With two empty seats being sucked out over the night sky, it is a miracle that the company doesn't have another deadly incident on its hands.

Yet whatever sliver remained of Boeing's reputation almost certainly vanished through the same dark void described as "the size of a refrigerator" in reports. This latest incident is another potentially devastating setback for a company still reeling from the worldwide grounding of its 737 Max planes following two deadly crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia that killed a total of 346 people.

Early indications are that it was an isolated incident – but this is Boeing, after all, so regulators cannot afford to take any chances. It is reassuring that America's National Transportation Safety Board sprung into action; so too that Alaska Airlines was quick to ground its entire fleet of 737 Max 9 jets for immediate inspection.