Newly released documents detail chaotic moments after Alaska Airlines door plug blowout

(NEW YORK) — Newly released documents describe the chaotic moments on board Alaska Airlines flight 1282 after the door plug blew out shortly after takeoff earlier this year, as the National Transportation Safety Board holds a two-day hearing into the matter.

The NTSB released thousands of pages of documents and interview transcripts, including with members of the crew, on Tuesday, amid its investigation into the Jan. 5 blowout on the Boeing 737 Max 9 plane.

The crew described the frantic, confusing moments after the door plug blew out minutes after taking off from Portland International Airport during interviews with NTSB investigators.

Because flight attendants were strapped into their jump seats in the galley, they had no idea what had just happened, the documents show. They also could not see into the cabin and were focusing on getting their oxygen masks on. They only knew there was a depressurization event because an automated PA announcement came on to alert passengers to use their masks, the documents show. Bright cabin lights also turned on.

Communication in the cockpit was extremely limited because of noise. Headsets flew off and the oxygen masks were making a squealing noise after the pilots took them off, according to the documents. The pilots decided to put the masks back on to stop the squealing, but then their eye protection began to fog on the final approach, according to the documents.

The pilots had to continuously repeat certain messages to air traffic controllers because the audio was so bad, according to the documents.

Flight attendants also could not make contact with the flight deck because of the noise. One flight attendant told NTSB investigators she didn’t know if there was a hole in the plane in the flight deck and worried the pilots may have been incapacitated, before ultimately being able to make contact with them, according to the documents.

“The scariest thing was I didn’t have exact communication with my flight deck and at first I didn’t know if the decompression was in the front, if we have pilots, and not being able to fully communicate with the back and just know exactly what happened and what was going on,” the unidentified flight attendant told the NTSB, according to the documents. “I think out of all, that was probably the scariest part out of all that.”

The rear flight attendant was initially certain that passengers died, the crew member told NTSB investigators. The flight was nearly full with the exception of a few seats; the two seats next to the missing door plug happened to be empty. When the rear flight attendant felt it was safe enough to leave his oxygen mask, he saw empty seats near the hole and was sure people were sucked out, he told the NTSB, adding that it’s so rare for people not to move into an empty window seat or empty row on a full flight.

“At the point where I first saw the hole, I saw five empty seats,” he told investigators. “In that moment I thought we lost — I was certain that we had lost people because we were full except for a few open seats and I did not recall that 26 A and B had not been occupied. So I was absolutely certain that we had lost people out of the hole and that we had casualties.”

The plane safely made an emergency landing and no one was seriously injured in the incident. Tray tables were ripped off and hit passengers on their way out of the aircraft, and one teen lost his top and was badly bruised, according to the documents.

The pilots had no idea there was a hole in the plane until after the plane landed and passengers deplaned, according to the documents.

“I knew that there was something wrong,” one pilot said, according to the transcript. “I knew that there was a — there was air being brought into the airplane where there shouldn’t be, but I had no idea if it was a hole, if it was a window, if it was a main cabin door. I had no idea. I had no idea. I never heard anything from the flight attendants.”

The NTSB has not been able to interview the 737 door plug manager because the employee is on medical leave, the agency said.

The documents were publicly released as NTSB began holding an investigative hearing into the door plug incident. The hearing, held on Tuesday and Wednesday, will “assist in obtaining information necessary to determine the facts, circumstances, and probable cause of the transportation accident or incident under investigation and to make recommendations to improve transportation safety,” the NTSB said in a statement.

During the hearing on Tuesday, Boeing Commercial Airplanes senior executive Elizabeth Lund said the company is working on a design change of the door plug to make it even more secure. Planes currently in service will be retrofitted hopefully within a year, she said.

After Lund detailed changes the company has implemented in the months following the incident under increased oversight from the Federal Aviation Administration, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy issued a “word of caution.”

“This is not a PR campaign for Boeing,” she said. “You can talk all about where you are today. There’s going to be plenty of time for that. We want to know the safety improvements. But what is very confusing for a lot of people who are watching, who are listening, is what was going on then. This is an investigation on what happened on Jan. 5.”

An NTSB preliminary report released in February found that four bolts designed to prevent the door plug from falling off the Boeing 737 Max 9 plane were missing before the plug blew off the flight.

Boeing records reviewed by the NTSB showed that damaged rivets on the edge frame forward of the plug were replaced by Spirit AeroSystems employees at Boeing’s factory in Renton, Washington, on Sept. 19, 2023, according to the agency’s report.

Boeing had to open the plug by removing the two vertical movement arrestor bolts and two upper guide track bolts for the rivets to be replaced, but photo documentation obtained from Boeing showed evidence that the plug was closed with no bolts in three visible locations, according to the NTSB report.

One bolt area is obscured by insulation in the photo, though the NTSB said it was able to determine in its laboratory that that bolt was also not put back on.

During the hearing Tuesday, Lund said that paperwork authorizing the removal of the door plug, which would have documented the work being done, has not been found.

Homendy also addressed the culture between Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems, after one unidentified Spirit employee told NTSB investigators, “Well, basically we’re the cockroaches of the factory.”

“What have you done since March to address that issue? Have you gotten feedback from your employees?” she asked Michael Riney, a customer relations director from Spirit AeroSystems based at the Renton facility.

Riney responded that he would discuss with his managers “to ensure they are soliciting that feedback” and would “personally follow up with them to understand what specifically I can do to help with that.”