The Alaska Airlines jet that lost a door mid-flight and led to an emergency landing was banned from long-distance journeys over water after a cabin pressure warning light signaled on three prior flights.
The missing door has since been found after a teacher with Portland Public Schools discovered the ‘plug’ in his backyard in Cedar Hills on Sunday night.
The cockpit voice recorder from the Boeing 737 MAX 9 was also found to be overwritten by the time investigators recovered it as it was not retrieved in the two hour mark, the the National Transportation Safety Board revealed.
The Seattle-based airline has since announced the cancelation of 170 flights on Sunday night and another 60 on Monday so the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration can run inspections on the aircrafts.
Federal investigators originally asked for the public’s help in finding the missing plug door on flight 1282 that was set to fly from Portland International Airport to Ontario International in California on Friday night.
Just after 5pm the door ripped off the left side of the aircraft at 16,000 feet as terrified passengers contacted loved ones and said what they thought would be their final goodbyes.
Alaska flight 1282 left Portland just after 5pm Friday when a window blew out at 16,000 feet and federal investigators are now trying to hunt down the missing piece
The flight that was set out to arrive at Ontario International in California turned back around after the plug door came off on Friday night
Jennifer Homendy of the National Transportation Safety Board said that the plug door is located around Barnes Road near I-217 in the Cedar Hills, Oregon
Cockpit voice recorder’s can be found on all aircrafts and is there to capture the flight crew’s voices and all sounds in the cockpit.
According to the NTSB website, the device is capable of recording up to 25 hours and is re-set every two hours. Because the it was not re-set in time, it is unknown what was said at the time of the emergency.
The aircraft’s ‘auto pressurization’ light has also been reported to have illuminated on three previous flights and was restricted from flying again.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators have hailed the miracle that allowed the 171 passengers and crew members on board the Boeing 737-9 Max survived.
The incident led to the grounding of Boeing 737-9 Max planes while an investigation is underway.
‘We believe, from looking at radar data, that the door is around Barnes Road near I-217 in the Cedar Hills neighborhood,’ Jennifer Homendy, the Safety Board Chair of the NTSB said. ‘If you find that please, please contact local law enforcement.’
Cedar Hills is located in Washington County, Oregon, which is about seven miles west of Portland.
The Washington County Sheriff’s Office posted to X on Sunday afternoon and said: ‘Deputies are aware of the information shared by the @NTSB and the possibility that the @AlaskaAir Flight 1282 door may have fallen in our area. At this time, we have not been asked to coordinate any specific search and have not gotten any calls from the public regarding possible found debris.’
‘We will be looking at the entire chain of the events, from production to putting this plug in service to what happened to the history of this particular aircraft in flight and in service from the start to where we are today,’ Homendy told NBC News.
A photo shows the blown out area. It is offered as a door on the aircraft. Alaska chose not to take this option – although the frame of the prospective door was entirely ripped out by the fuselage failure
One passenger, Emma Vu took to TikTok after she made it out alive through the horror flight that was only in the air for 20 minutes
Sunday was the first day that investigators fully examined the bizarre event that left one person with non-life-threatening injuries and forced Alaskan Airlines to ground dozens of its Boeing 737-9 MAX jets for urgent safety checks.
Several other airlines have also made the decision to ground aircrafts of that model as critics have pointed to other deadly crashes and system failures involving the type of jet in recent years.
Its catastrophic failure depressurized the cabin, with the force of the air rushing in ripping the shirt off a young boy, whose mom was seen holding onto him. Passengers also watched as their phones were sucked out into the night sky.
Toys, phones and clothes were also sucked into the atmosphere through the gaping hole and fortunately nobody was sitting in the two seats right next to the now missing door.
Terrifying footage showed fliers looking out through the giant hole left from the missing piece of the plane onto the twinkling lights of Portland below in the eerily quiet cabin.
Passengers reported hearing a ‘really loud boom’ before a ‘deathly’ silence fell over the cabin as the plane made its emergency landing back in Portland around 40 minutes later.
One passenger, Emma Vu took to TikTok after she made it out alive through the horror flight that was only in the air for 20 minutes.
Vu sent a text to her family that read ‘I don’t want to die’ and revealed how scared she was in the moment.
She revealed her panic-stricken texts to her family that said: ‘The masks r down; I am so scared right now; Please pray for me; Please I don’t want to die.’
Vu said she was asleep when the devastating safety failure erupted out of the blue, when she ‘felt the entire plane drop.’
‘The masks dropped, and people are screaming,’ she continued, next to a tearful selfie she took in the moment that she feared could be her last.
‘I am so grateful for the ladies sat next to me… they were so sweet at calming me down, and the flight attendants were giving oxygen tanks to those who needed it more,’ she said.
In audio from inside the cockpit, the pilot could be heard radioing for emergency help, saying: ‘Portland approach, Alaska 1282 emergency! Aircraft is now leveling 12,000 in a left turn heading three four zero.
Oxygen masks are seen dangling from the ceiling of the aircraft as the dark night is seen from the plane from the giant gaping hole left behind
In audio from inside the cockpit, the pilot could be heard radioing for emergency help, saying: ‘Portland approach, Alaska 1282 emergency! Aircraft is now leveling 12,000 in a left turn heading three four zero.
‘We need a divert. We’ve declared an emergency. We are depressurized. We have 177 passengers on board and a seal is…18,900’ the pilot can be heard explaining.
The back of the seat on 26A that sat directly next to the door has been ripped off completely.
The headrests on seats 25A and 26A were also torn off as pieces of clothes were scattered in the area, Homendy said.
“The video looks very calm, but I’m sure it was completely chaotic and very loud,” she said.
She went on to say that if the door had detached from the aircraft before it reached cruising altitude, when passengers are allowed to take off their seatbelts, the outcome would’ve been much worse.
Passenger Nick Hoch, 33, told CNN that he was sitting on the left side, just a few rows from where the piece came off as ‘mist or cloud whooshed’ past him and hit his face.
“There were people much closer who I spoke with who lost AirPods out of their ears,” Hoch said.
A passenger with an oxygen masks is seen looking back in distress as 171 passengers were left terrified after a piece of the plane flew off mid-air
Alaskan Airlines decided to ground dozens of its Boeing 737-9 MAX jets for urgent safety checks after the matter
The plug door is used as an emergency exit when the plane is configured to take more passengers but is sealed up and invisible from inside in the configuration used by Alaska.
Oxygen is needed in emergencies occurring above 12,000ft to prevent hypoxia — oxygen starvation — which can cause dizziness, loss of consciousness, and permanent brain damage.
FlightAware and Federal Aviation Administration records revealed that the plane involved in the incident has been in service for approximately three months and had flown around 150 times since October 2023.
Alaska Airlines said that 18 of the Boeing 737-9 Max planes were inspected on Saturday and returned, but were soon brought back and will be removed ‘until details about possible additional maintained work are confirmed with the FAA.’