Thank You for Flying the Suddenly Very Windy Skies: Door Rips off Plane Mid Flight
https://www.latimes.com/california/s...rgency-landing
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FAA grounds some Boeing 737 Max-9 jets after section of Alaska Airlines plane is blown out during flight
By Jeremy Childs, Ruben Vives
Published Jan. 5, 2024 Updated Jan. 6, 2024 11:06 AM PT
The Federal Aviation Administration has ordered airlines to temporarily ground some Boeing 737 Max-9 jets after an Alaska Airlines flight bound for Southern California was forced to make an emergency landing when a hole blew open in the side of the aircraft shortly after takeoff Friday night.
The move came hours after a terrifying flight in which passengers heard a loud booming sound, then watched as a piece of the plane’s frame blew off. No passengers were hurt; the seat closest to the rupture was vacant, witnesses said.
The cause remains unclear.
“The FAA is requiring immediate inspections of certain Boeing 737 Max-9 planes before they can return to flight,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said. “Safety will continue to drive our decision-making as we assist the NTSB’s investigation into Alaska Airlines Flight 1282.”
The FAA’s airworthiness directive will affect approximately 171 airplanes worldwide, including 65 Alaska Airlines planes, as the investigation continues, officials said. The order came hours after the airline had already ordered its planes grounded.
Operators will be required to inspect aircraft before further flight, according to the directive. The required inspections will take around four to eight hours per aircraft.
Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 left Portland International Airport in Oregon around 5 p.m. headed toward Ontario, with 171 passengers and six crew members on board, according to the airline.
While the plane was gaining altitude, a window and part of the plane’s wall blew out, according to social media reports. Alaska Airlines described the event as “an incident” and said the plane turned around and safely landed back in Portland.
FlightAware, a public airplane tracker, listed the total flight length as 35 minutes.
A video posted to TikTok by a passenger on the flight showed a panel on the left side of the plane missing, with insulation foam visible. Oxygen masks were deployed from the ceiling. Passengers said they first heard a loud boom.
“The oxygen masks dropped down, and I look to my left to hear and see wind blasting, with a piece of the wall gone,” Elizabeth Le told KTLA-TV News. “There was no one in the window seat but a mom and her teenage son were sitting [on] the aisle.”
“I looked up and saw that the son’s shirt was completely off and his skin was very red,” Le told the station.
Another passenger said on X, formerly known as Twitter: “I was right across from it, it was scary as hell.”
A TikTok user who was on the flight shared her experience saying she was asleep she the plane suddenly dropped in altitude prompting the oxygen masks to drop down. She said she heard passengers screaming.
“It was just so scary, no one knew what was happening,” she said.
Sara Nelson, president of the Flight Association of Flight Attendants, which represents 50,000 members, praised the crew working Alaska Flight 1282 and said one flight attendant suffered minor injuries following an “explosive decompression at a window/plugged door.”
“Last night’s incident could have been worse, but flight attendants and pilots of Alaska 1282 ensured all passengers and crew arrived safely back on the ground,” Nelson said.
She said the union supported the temporary grounding of the Boeing Max aircraft fleet.
“This is a critical move to ensure the safety of all crew and passengers, as well as confidence in aviation safety,” she said. “Lives must come first always.”
The Alaska Airlines flight attendant union said in a statement that crew members on the flight “described the decompression as explosive” and that one attendant suffered minor injuries.
The incident was the latest problem for Boeing’s popular 737 MAX aircraft. The passenger airliner was grounded worldwide between March 2019 and December 2020 after 346 people died in two similar crashes: Lion Air Flight 610 on October 29, 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10, 2019.
The crashes were caused, investigators determined, by changes Boeing made that distinguish the 737 Max from its predecessors.
To handle a longer fuselage that could fit more passengers, Boeing put larger, stronger engines on the plane. Those engines had to be moved forward on the wings because they didn’t fit in the same places as the old, smaller engines. But the new placement could cause the plane to pitch up. To counteract that, Boeing added software called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System to automatically push the plane’s nose back down.
Regulators determined that a faulty sensor in the planes triggered the software system to nosedive under certain conditions, defying pilots’ efforts to regain control of the plane.
After 20 months of investigations, upgrades and tests, regulators cleared the plane to fly passengers again in 2021.
The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the Alaska Airlines incident.
Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci said in a written statement that its fleet of 65 Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft would be returned to service only after completion of full maintenance and safety inspections.
“We anticipate all inspections will be completed in the next few days,” Minicucci said. “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.”
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https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/...=w_2000,c_fill
Looks like it was really just the door that fell off the plane, the interior pieces probably got sucked out during the sudden cabin depressurization.
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