PORTLAND, Ore. — An Alaska Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing at the Portland International Airport (PDX) on Friday night after a large panel on the side of the plane blew out mid-flight.
According to the flight tracking site FlightAware, Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 was heading from PDX to Ontario, California. It departed at 4:52 p.m., then had to turn back around; the airplane landed in Portland at 5:27 p.m. — an hour and 20 minutes earlier than its planned arrival in California.
A passenger who was on the plane, told KGW that a panel on the side of the plane blew out, taking one of the windows with it, causing a rapid decompression of the cabin.
A video posted to TikTok by another passenger, Elizabeth, shows the aftermath, as the plane returns to Portland and lands at PDX. By that point, passengers appeared calm, although they were using oxygen masks.
"Everything was going fine until we heard a loud bang ... a boom," Elizabeth recalled. "I look up, and the air masks are popped down, and I look down to my left, and there's a huge, gaping hole on the left side, where the window is."
While people were shaken, no one was hurt, though a child's shirt got pulled through the opening, she said. The child and the mother were sitting across the aisle when the panel blew out, and Elizabeth told KGW that she heard the mom had to drag her son back inside, his skin reddened by the wind.
Elizabeth was sitting two rows to the right behind where the window was, and recalled she could feel the air where she was.
"It was really loud; at first, I thought it was my ears popping ... I had my noise-cancelling headphones on, so it did suppress most of the noise, thankfully," she continued. "I'm glad everyone stayed calm, and everyone had their seatbelts on ... so everyone was okay."
Evan Smith, a passenger visiting Portland over the holidays, was on the flight to get home to California. He was sitting in row 20, and said there was a "big bang" and "smoky smell."
"Everybody got their masks on. Cabin crew was very calm, going around, trying got take care of everybody and see what was going on. Pilot did a good job," he said. "Shows you how structurally strong those planes are: You could blow a hole in it like that. The hole was about as wide as a refrigerator and about two-thirds as high when I finally got to see it later."
The flight crew then checked up on the passengers, who could not hear the intercom announcement over the wind, and moved some farther away from the hole.
Elizabeth said though she didn't know what exactly happened, a man was taken off the plane by paramedics after they landed. The paramedics also checked on the mother and son.
"The cabin crew did an excellent job. The pilot did a great job. Can’t say anything bad about them at all," Smith said.
Elizabeth said her group was able to take a later flight.
Sound from the air traffic control tower has the pilot declaring an emergency and planning a descent, saying the plane depressurized.
The Port of Portland and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) both confirmed the emergency landing, with the FAA noting that the crew "reported a pressurization issue" and returned safely to PDX around 5 p.m. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the incident.
Flight information shows that the plane was a twin-jet Boeing 737 MAX 9. According to FAA records, the aircraft's certification date was Nov. 2, 2023, less than three months old. Boeing also said it was helping investigate.
Alaska Airlines announced Friday night it would ground its fleet of 65 Boeing 737-9 MAX Aircrafts. In a statement, CEO Ben Minicucci said each aircraft would be returned to service after a full maintenance and safety inspection which they expect will take a few days.
Minicucci added, "My heart goes out to those who were on this flight. I am so sorry for what you experienced. I am so grateful for the response of our pilots and flight attendants. We have teams on the ground in Portland assisting passengers and are working to support guests who are traveling in the days ahead."
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