By David Shepardson and Valerie Insinna WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said on Wednesday that inspections of an initial group of 40 Boeing 737 MAX 9 jets had been completed, a key hurdle to eventually ungrounding the model after a mid-air cabin panel blowout on Jan. 5. The FAA had said last week that 40 of 171 grounded planes needed to be re-inspected before the agency would review the results and determine if it is safe to allow the MAX 9s to resume flying following the incident on an eight-week old Alaska Airlines jet. The FAA said on Wednesday it would “thor…