It was January 5, 2024. Alaska Airlines flight 1282 was preparing to take off from Portland International Airport in Portland, Oregon and was bound for Ontario International Airport, Ontario, California. The Boeing 737 MAX 9 had 171 passengers and 6 crew onboard.
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An uneventful take-off
The flight attendants had boarded the flight normally and passengers were in good spirits after the holidays. There were a few infants onboard and three unaccompanied minors (UNMINs), one just five years old and on his first flight. It is the flight attendants’ responsibility to take special care of them. They proceeded with the safety demonstration and the passengers were attentive. Alaska Airlines flight 1282 took off at 17:07 local time.
What happened next?
Two flight attendants were seated at the rear and two at the front, by the main passenger door. The two at the rear were chatting and one ate M&M’s that had been gifted to them from a passenger. Suddenly, as the aircraft headed towards 16,000 feet and just six minutes after take-off, there was a large bang, a hissing sound and a strong gust of air in the cabin. The oxygen masks had deployed in the cabin and the cabin lights came on.
“It was like an eternity of just disbelief”
Flight attendant, flight 1282
A plug door on the left side had separated from the fuselage, causing a decompression. Luckily, there had been no one seated at 26A, next to where the hole in the fuselage was. Some personal items like mobile phones were sucked out of the hole. A boy in row 25 had his shirt ripped off his back by the force of the wind. His mother held tightly onto him, fearing that he would be sucked out of the aircraft.
Some passengers managed to move away from the hole. One person screamed. One of the flight attendants left their seat and walked down the aisle. She didn’t see the hole in the fuselage at first, but saw a woman’s hair blowing in the wind. Her colleague was emotional as he thought they’d lost passengers, but she reassured him and said that they needed to look after the passengers.
“At the point where I first saw the hole, I saw five empty seats. So I was absolutely certain that we had lost people out of the hole and that we had casualties.”
Flight attendant, flight 1282
The cockpit door flew open, hitting the lavatory door and got stuck. One of the flight attendants worked on releasing it. The first officer’s headset was pulled off and the captain’s was dislodged. The quick reference checklist had blown into the cabin. The flight crew immediately went onto oxygen and declared an emergency and requested a lower altitude. They would return to the airport for an emergency landing.
The flight attendants at the back were concerned about the UNMINs and the infants, whose oxygen masks were too big for their faces and went to help them. The two at the front were trying to communicate with the flight deck, but it was so loud, they could barely hear anything. All four flight attendants moved through the cabin to check on the passengers, although they were not sure if it was safe to leave their seats.
One tried to use the oxygen masks to ‘monkey’ through the cabin as they were taught in training, but the masks kept getting tangled up. They would check that the passengers were using the oxygen masks correctly and make sure that the cabin was secure for an emergency landing.
“We had to just use our own intuition and that involved taking a risk, it involved us saying ‘is it safe for us to get up?’ We don’t know.”
“What we know is there’s a tiny little boy who might need oxygen and so we were motivated to just, I guess, put that individual’s safety above ours in the moment because we just didn’t know what else to do.”
Flight attendant, flight 1282
The aftermath
Alaska Airlines flight 1282 landed safely back at Portland International Airport at 17:27. The flight attendants checked their areas for missing passengers and were relieved to find none were missing. Firefighters boarded the aircraft, to check for injuries. The aircraft deplaned normally at the gate. Seven passengers and one flight attendant had minor injuries.
Seat 25A had lost its headrest and was in a twisted position. Seat 26A had lost its headrest, seatback cushion and tray table on the rear side. The interior was slightly damaged. The door plug was found in the backyard of a home in Cedar Mill, near Oregan Route 217. This was reported to the NTSB on January 7th. Two cell phones from the flight were found by the public.
First official details
On February 6, this year, the National Transportation Safety Board released a preliminary report on the accident. Four bolts that should have secured the door plug in place were missing and Boeing’s records showed that the plug had been reinstalled with no bolts before the initial delivery of the aircraft. The aircraft with registration N704AL was only two months old and had logged 510 flight hours over 154 flights.
Some background information
The Boeing 737 MAX 9 has optional emergency exit doors in the rear mid-cabin, just behind the wings, on both sides. Some MAX 9 have more than 189 seats and therefore require the additional emergency exit door, to meet regulations for emergency evacuation. On aircraft with fewer seats, the doors are not required and door plugs are installed instead. The plugs are lighter and less complex than an emergency exit door and are covered with normal cabin panels and looks no different to a normal window panel.
- Loud bang and blast of air
- Fog in cabin, liquids may boil
- Loose items may fly around
- Oxygen masks drop, lights come on
A rapid decompression in an aircraft can be defined as a sudden drop in cabin pressure, that can happen in seconds and is often due to structural failure or breach in the fuselage. Signs of a rapid decompression are a loud bang and a blast of air, as the high-pressure air inside the cabin escapes to the low-pressure air outside.
There may be fog or condensation in the cabin, liquids may boil over and any loose items may fly around the cabin and be sucked outside. The oxygen masks in the cabin will drop in the event of decompression. There is a risk of hypoxia for crew and passengers, so gaining oxygen is essential as well as being secured by a seatbelt.
“We got so lucky. When this is all said and done, investigations are over … how can we know this is not going to happen again and this is safe? Because that should not have happened.”
Flight attendant, flight 1282
*Quotes taken from NTSB interviews and reported by The Seattle Times.