Boeing has said it will add further quality inspections for the 737 MAX planes after a mid-air blowout of a cabin panel in an Alaska Airlines MAX 9 earlier this month, the head of its commercial planes division said.

In a letter to the global planemaker’s employees on Monday, Stan Deal, president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said the company will also deploy a team to supplier Spirit AeroSystems – which makes and installs the plug door involved in the incident – to check and approve Spirit’s work on the plugs before fuselages are sent to Boeing’s production facilities in Washington state in the US.