At approximately 5:06PM on Friday, January 5, Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 departed from Portland, Oregon en route to Ontario, California. Six minutes later, while traveling at a speed of 271 knots and at an altitude of 14,653 feet, the left mid exit door (MED) located behind seat 26A blew off of the Boeing Air Max 737 Max 9. The plane rapidly depressurized. Thankfully, a catastrophe was averted. At approximately 5:30PM, the plane, all 177 passengers and six crew members on board returned safely to Gate 27B of Portland International Airport. Only three passengers had to be treated for minor injuries.

Regulators, investors, politicians, opinion-makers of all stripes and the general public have all been trying to figure out how such a horrific event could have even occurred. Doors aren’t supposed to blow off planes in mid-flight! Despite its risks, air travel remains the safest way to travel. Based on one recent study, your chances of dying in a car accident are 1 in 114. However, your chances of dying in a plane crash are 1 in 9,821! Although it may not seem or feel like it, you are more likely to die making a one hour drive from Los Angeles to San Diego than you are from taking a 19 hour flight from Los Angeles to Australia. Like anyone who frequently travels by air, I’ve had more than my fair share of turbulent flights. On one flight from Bejing to New York, the turbulence was excruciating. I was so relieved when we landed that I did something that I’ve seen Popes repeatedly do: I kissed the ground. But I’ve never been on a flight when the door of the plane blew off!

Earlier this week, the National Safety Transportation Board issued a preliminary report that identified the reason why the incident occurred. Here is an excerpt from the report:

Overall, the observed damage patterns and absence of contact damage or deformation around holes associated with the vertical movement arrestor bolts and upper guide track bolts in the upper guide fittings, hinge fittings, and recovered aft lower hinge guide fitting indicate that the. four bolts that prevent upward movement of the mid exit door (MED) plug were missing before the MED plug moved upward off the stop pads.

In other words, the report found that the bolts that were supposed to keep the mid exit door in place were not there. Further analysis discovered that that particular aircraft had completed several flights without the necessary bolts. So this incident came down to nuts and bolts. It’s amazing that something so small could have caused something big.

Or maybe it isn’t.

Nuts and bolts are designed to hold two objects together. A bolt is usually inserted into the object you want to join and then fastened firmly with the nut. Nuts and bolts are simple and small. But they are intricate, necessary and significant objects. They are usually unseen and often ignored. That is, until doors come off.

When doors start coming off, and relationships start falling apart, and businesses start failing, our children start regressing, and our health starts deteriorating, we have a tendency too look for the “big things” to explain what happened. In life, leadership and love, we tend to focus so much on the big things, that we have a tendency to ignore the little things. But as Alaska Flight 1282 reminds us, sometimes things come apart because someone didn’t pay attention to the nuts and bolts. Alaska Flight 1282 also reminds us that we can fly for a while with missing nuts and bolts. But if we ignore them, sooner or later, our doors are going to come off. Nuts and bolts are simple and small. But they are intricate, necessary and significant objects.

It is illuminating that bolts make an appearance in the biblical book of Nehemiah. The book tells the story of a man who was called by God to oversee the reconstruction of the city Jerusalem after it was destroyed by the Babylonians. Although Nehemiah’s efforts were met with resistance and ridicule, he preserved and the project was successful. And several passages make it clear that Nehemiah’s success was due in part to the fact that he paid attention to the bolts. For example, in Nehemiah 3:14, it says that

The Fish Gate was built by the Hassenaah brothers; they repaired it, hung its doors, and installed its bolts and bars. Meremoth son of Uriah, the son of Hakkoz, worked; next to him Meshullam son of Berekiah, the son of Meshezabel; next to him Zadok son of Baana; and next to him the Tekoites (except for their nobles, who wouldn’t work with their master and refused to get their hands dirty with such work).

This text affirms the truth that you can’t build anything without bolts. The mere fact that in his report on the progress of one aspect of the project that he even noticed and mentioned the bolts is telling. Leaders and builders MUST pay attention to the nuts and bolts.

This text also reveals why so many people ignore the bolts. Like the nobles in Nehemiah’s day, we don’t want to get our hands dirty. Nuts and bolt work is dirty work. Nuts and bolts remind me of what Serena Williams once said about playing tennis. She said “the audience doesn’t come to practice.” But practice is one of the “nuts and bolts” of excellence. It is unseen and usually ignored. No one thinks about it, or pays attention to it. That is, until doors start flying off.

Don’t wait until the doors of your life start flying off to work on the nuts and bolts. Do the dirty work—the stuff that no one sees, but that holds life, relationships, and careers together.