Alaska Airlines pilot describes ‘loud bang’ when Boeing jet lost door plug

A pilot who flew Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 has described the moment that a door plug blew out mid-air from a Boeing 737 Max 9 plane earlier this year.

First Officer Emily Wiprud told CBS News in an interview published on Wednesday that the terrifying incident began when she heard an “explosion.”

“The first indication was an explosion in my ears and then a whoosh of air,” Wiprud said. “My body was forced forward and there was a loud bang as well. … The flight deck door was open. I saw tubes hanging from the cabin.” 

The mid-air blowout happened as the flight was flying over Portland, Oregon, toward Ontario, California, on Jan. 5 with 171 guests and six crew members on board. 

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“It was so incredibly loud,” Wipurd told the outlet. “And I remember putting the oxygen mask on and trying to transmit to air traffic control and wondering ‘Why can’t I hear anything?'” 

Wipurd and the flight’s captain successfully made an emergency landing at Portland International Airport around 14 minutes after the decompression incident. Wipurd, however, said he didn’t know exactly what happened until after the landing.

“I didn’t know that there was a hole in the airplane until we landed,” Wiprud said. “I knew something was catastrophically wrong.”

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During a hearing with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) about the incident last month, one flight attendant said that they were worried that passengers had been sucked out of the plane after seeing the gaping hole in the plane and five empty seats.

Wiprud recalled how, upon landing, flight attendants told her that there were “empty seats and injuries” among the passengers. 

Thankfully, no passengers had been sucked out of the plane, though a teen in a seat near the door plug blowout had his shirt ripped out and had quickly moved seats. Other injuries reported among those on the flight were minor.

Boeing has since been the subject of a lengthy NTSB and the company’s aircraft safety has received a new wave of scrutiny.

Following the incident, Boeing failed 33 aspects of a federal audit with a total of 97 points of noncompliance, according to The New York Times. The company passed 56 points of the audit.

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The FBI also began notifying passengers that they may be a “possible victim of a crime.”