Passengers aboard an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-9 MAX bound for Ontario, Calif., experienced a harrowing ordeal after an emergency door blew out at 16,000 feet, shortly after takeoff from Portland International Airport.
In heart-stopping audio captured by onboard aviation equipment, the pilot can be heard radioing for help, declaring the incident an emergency and requesting a divert because the cabin had depressurized. The jet was carrying 171 passengers and six crew. The catastrophic failure of the window, used as a regular cabin window, depressurised the cabin, with the force of the air rushing in ripping the shirt off a young boy, whose mother was seen holding onto him. Passengers also reported watching in horror as their phones were sucked out into the night sky.
Amazingly, all passengers and crew emerged unscathed, although investigations conducted by Boeing, Alaska Airlines and the National Transportation Safety Board have been launched.
A possible structural failure has been cited as the cause of the incident, as there were signs the area of the fuselage that ripped had been aligned perfectly with the frame of the deactivated door. Alaska chose not to that door for that row in the plane’s design, which remained deactivated by Boeing before delivery, with reports suggesting the seat next to the blown-out window was unoccupied.
Oregon Live spoke to a 20-year-old passenger named Elizabeth, who said the noise of the explosion was deafening. She explained that they were all calm but, “I did feel like I was about to cry, because who knows this could be my last few moments.” Another passenger, Kyle Rinker, described how the atmosphere on board became “deathly silent.” Indeed, terrifying footage showed fliers looking out through the gaping hole of the fuselage on to the twinkling lights of Portland below in the eerily quiet cabin.
The incident occurred on a new aircraft, which had only gone into service in November 2023. Reports suggest that the plane’s oxygen masks deployed almost immediately, with several passengers using them as they waited for the plane to land at PDX.
