An Alaska Airlines plane bound for Ontario, California, was forced to turn around and make an emergency landing at Portland International Airport Friday evening, January 5, after a section of its fuselage suddenly came loose. No injuries were reported. Passengers on the flight shared photos on social media showing a gaping hole in the side of the plane, behind the left wing, as if an entire section of the fuselage, around the window, had been torn off.
A passenger on the flight, Kyle Rinker, explained to American television CNN that the window had blown off just after takeoff. “It was really brutal. Barely at altitude, the front of the window just came off and I only noticed it when the oxygen masks came down,” he said.
A 20-year-old passenger told local newspaper The Oregonian that she heard “a very loud boom” about 20 minutes after takeoff. “It sounded like your ears were banging like normal on a plane, but 10 times louder,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it was real.” According to testimonies on social networks, many objects were sucked out of the plane at the time of the accident, but fortunately, no passenger was in the immediate vicinity of the window at the time.
Instead of descending into chaos, a strange calm settled on the plane, according to the testimony of this passenger, while around 200 passengers were on board. “I was just praying that everything would go well,” she said. “We were all calm, but I felt like I was about to cry, because who knows, it could be my last moments.” The plane “was deathly silent. No one made a noise,” added Kyle Rinker, 29, in a text message. The company said on the social network X that it was “aware of an incident involving the Alaska Airlines flight
The National Transportation Safety Board (FAA) registry indicates that the Boeing 737-9 was almost new, manufactured in 2023 and certified in November. It reached an altitude of 16,000 feet before turning back toward Portland. The FAA and Alaska Airlines have each said they are investigating the incident.
In a press release published Friday evening, the president of the company Ben Minicucci announced that it was “temporarily” grounding the 65 aircraft in its Boeing 737-9 fleet. “Each aircraft will only be returned to service after completing comprehensive maintenance and safety inspections. We expect all inspections to be completed in the coming days,” he explains.
