Alaska Airlines is grounding its entire fleet of Boeing 737-9 jets after a large panel of the fuselage on one of the aircraft blew out in mid-air, triggering a terrifying loss of cabin pressure and forcing an emergency landing.
“Each aircraft will be returned to service only after completion of full maintenance and safety inspections,” the carrier said in a statement, calling the move “precautionary.”
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the incident aboard Flight 1282, which was less than 10 minutes into a trip from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California, when passengers heard a strange noise.
“It sounded like your ears were popping like normally on a plane, but 10 times louder,” one passenger told The Oregonian. “I couldn’t believe it was real.”
Passengers told KGW that after the panel blew out, oxygen masks dropped down and some aboard used them until the jet landed back in Portland.
There were 174 passengers on board, and no one was sitting next to the window that blew out, but one passenger told The Oregonian that a teenager sitting in the middle seat of that row had his shirt sucked off and his parents had to drag him away to prevent him from being pulled out.
“I was just praying that everything would be OK,” that passenger said. “We were all calm, but I did feel like I was about to cry, because who knows this could be my last few moments.”
The plane came off the assembly line only two months ago.
