US FAA says first 40 inspections of Boeing 737 MAX 9 airplanes complete

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Aviation Administration said on Wednesday that inspections of an initial group of Boeing 737 MAX 9 airplanes have been completed, a key hurdle to eventually ungrounding the planes after a Jan. 5 cabin panel broke off in mid-flight.

On Friday, the FAA said 40 of the 171 grounded planes needed to be reinspected, then the agency would review the results and determine if it is safe to allow the Boeing MAX 9s to resume flying. The FAA said on Wednesday that it will "thoroughly review the data" from the inspections before deciding if the planes can resume flights.

Alaska Airlines and United Airlines, the two U.S. airlines that use the aircraft involved and which completed the inspections, have had to cancel hundreds of flights since last week and have canceled all MAX 9 flights through Wednesday.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Jason Neely)