Alaska Airlines grounded its fleet of Boeing 737 Max 9 planes after a flight operated by the airline made an emergency landing at Portland International Airport in Oregon on Friday evening due to an air pressure problem that passengers said caused part of the plane’s fuselage to blow off.
Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 made a safe emergency landing with 171 passengers and six crew members on board at Portland Airport shortly after takeoff bound for Ontario, California, the airline said. Within hours, the company said it had grounded all 65 Boeing 737 aircraft. Max 9 planes so you can inspect every plane. The plane makes up about a fifth of its fleet. It said in a statement that it expects to complete the inspections within a few days.
Passengers on board described an unsettling experience during the 15 minutes or so that the plane was returning to the airport. As yellow oxygen masks hung above their heads, strong winds blew across a wide gap that revealed the night sky and city lights below.
The Federal Aviation Administration said in a separate statement that the crew reported a “pressure issue” before the emergency landing. The Alaska Airlines Association of Flight Attendants said the decompression was “explosive” and that one flight attendant suffered minor injuries.
One passenger, Vi Nguyen from Portland, said she woke up to a loud noise during the flight. Then she saw a big hole in the side of the plane.
“I open my eyes and the first thing I see is the oxygen mask right in front of me,” Ms. Nguyen, 22, said. “I looked to the left and saw that the wall on the side of the plane had disappeared.”
“The first thing I thought was that I was going to die,” she added.
Her friend Elizabeth Low, 20, said she also heard a “very loud popping sound.” She added that when she looked up, she saw a large hole in the wall of the plane two or three rows away.
Ms Lu said no one was sitting in the window seat next to the missing fuselage, but a teenage boy and his mother were sitting in the middle and aisle seats. She added that the flight attendants helped them move to the other side of the plane after a few minutes. She added that the boy appeared to have lost his shirt, and his skin appeared red and irritated.
“It was honestly terrifying,” she said. “I almost collapsed, but I realized I needed to stay calm.”
She added that there were announcements over the speaker system, but none of them were audible because the winds blowing through the plane were so loud. She added that after the plane landed, paramedics came on board to ask if anyone had been injured. A man sitting in the row directly behind the pit said he hurt his foot.
Ms Low said the passengers were given no explanation for what happened. In a video I took of the flight, passengers can be heard applauding after landing. “Oh my God,” says one of them.
After landing, Ms. Lee said she and her friends were boarding another flight to Ontario later that night.
Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 departed for Ontario International Airport at 5:07 p.m. and was diverted to Portland six minutes later, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking website. It reached a maximum height of about 16,000 feet, recording a speed of more than 440 miles per hour, and landed in Portland at 5:27 p.m.
The exact cause of the weather problem was not clear as of early Saturday morning. An excessive difference in air pressure inside and outside the cabin can cause the wall to collapse, said Keith Tonkin, managing director of Aviation Projects, an aviation consulting firm based in Brisbane, Australia.
Mr Tonkin added that it was likely that passengers were able to breathe normally even when the plane was at its highest altitude.
The plane was new and had been certified in November, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) aircraft registry. It entered commercial service that month and has since recorded 145 flights, according to Flightradar24, another flight-tracking website.
Alaska Airlines representatives, the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board said they were investigating what happened.
Boeing said in a statement that it was “aware of the incident involving Alaska Airlines Flight 1282,” adding: “We are working to collect more information and are in contact with our airline customer.”
The 737 MAX has come under scrutiny from regulators around the world in recent years. In December, Boeing urged airlines to inspect all 737 MAX planes for a possible loose bolt in the rudder control system after an international airline discovered a bolt with a missing nut during routine maintenance. Alaska Airlines said at the time that it expected to complete inspections of its fleet in the first half of January.
It was another development in the turbulent history of the aircraft, a single-aisle aircraft designed for short and medium distances.
In 2018, Lion Air Flight 610 crashed into the ocean off the coast of Indonesia, killing all 189 passengers and crew. Less than five months later in 2019, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed shortly after departing from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, killing all 157 people on board.
After the two accidents, the MAX was grounded around the world. Boeing made changes to the plane, including the flight control system behind the two crashes, and the FAA cleared it to fly again in late 2020. In 2021, the company agreed to a $2.5 billion settlement with the Department of Justice, resolving the Criminal Boeing conspired to defraud the agency.
Mark Walker Contributed to reports.