Up next
Anarcho-Tyranny, Perfected
A passenger has recalled the heart-dropping moment a window and a piece of fuselage blew out of a plane mid-air in the United States.
About 20 minutes after takeoff from Portland yesterday, an Alaska Airline Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft bound for Ontario was forced to make an emergency landing after the wide hole caused depressurisation in the cabin.
The pilots were able to land their 174 passengers and six crew members safely, with witnesses reporting one boy’s shirt was ripped off him and flew out of the plane in the process.
Video from inside the flight showed the hole next to passengers on the side of the plane with oxygen masks released from the ceiling.
One terrified passenger said the incident was unlike anything she had experienced before.
“I woke up to the plane balling. I knew it was not normal turbulence. The mask came down. That’s when panic started to set in,” she told Today.
“It was definitely very scary. Very surreal. Even though it’s only been a few hours I feel thinking back a lot of my memory is kind of blurry from that.”
This morning, the United States’ Federal Aviation Administration grounded 171 of the Max 9s around the world while the incident and planes are being investigated.
Experts are attempting to determine whether there was a fault with the mechanical build of the aircraft or the installation of the window.
Alaska Airlines has said it has inspected at least a quarter of its fleet, which have been found to have no issues, and is working closely with Boeing and regulators.
Australian flights have not been affected by groundings as no airline in the country carries the aircraft at the centre of the incident, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority has confirmed.
The Max 9s have faced scrutiny in the past over its safety after two deadly crashes which forced the grounding of some of its fleet in 2019 and 2020.
