A school teacher who found the missing piece of the plane that exploded mid-flight on Friday has described the “amazing” moment he found the piece intact in his garden.
Alaska Airlines was forced to make an emergency landing After the door plug was torn A Boeing 737 MAX 9 carrying 171 passengers from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California.
With a large gap in the side of the plane, the pressure in the cabin was rapidly reduced, causing the oxygen masks to immediately fall off and cutting off communication between the pilots and crew.
The door-shaped plaque ended up in the backyard of Bob Sawyer, a high school physics teacher from Portland, and authorities believe it is the key to their investigation.
“It was unbelievable that this thing that people had been looking for all weekend would be in my yard,” Sawyer told Sky News' US partner NBC News.
High school physics teacher Bob Sawyer found the missing piece
After a neighbor suggested he look for the wreckage on Sunday, he eventually took his torch out that night and saw something “bright and white” among the cedar trees he planted 20 years ago.
“My heart started beating a little faster at that point because I thought 'Oh my God, people have been looking for him.'
“All weekend and it's like it's in my backyard,” he said.
Mr. Sawyer contacted the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), whose investigators requested a photo after a separate discovery turned out to be just a fluorescent lighting device.
He said he and the seven NTSB agents who came to his house to pick up the door stop were amazed that it was intact, and tree branches appeared to have been broken off by the fall.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators are examining the fuselage seal area
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While he said he used the episode to explain some elements of physics to his students, he said he spent more time talking about his newfound fame when he returned to school.
“By the time I got to school, almost the entire school knew about it,” he said.
They offered to send agents to Mr. Sawyer's classroom to give a presentation on how the agency conducts investigations, but Mr. Sawyer declined, said Jennifer Homendy, the head of the NTSB.
“If it wasn't finals week, I would have tried to discuss this with them,” he said.
