An Alaska Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing at Portland International Airport on Friday night, January 5, 2024, because a large portion of the plane exploded in midair. According to sources like ABC News, several passengers reported the same.
The captain of an Alaska Airlines flight from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California, was forced to make an emergency landing at Portland International Airport due to a broken window, resulting in a loss of cabin pressure.
A window and what appeared to be the plane's emergency exit were missing, according to photos and videos shared on X (formerly known as Twitter).
Once the pictures were uploaded to X by user @DramaAlert, they went viral. Netizens immediately took to the comments section of the post to respond to the whole matter.
Internet users reacted to the Alaska Airlines flight 1282 He makes an emergency landing in Portland
After an Alaska Airlines flight made an emergency landing, terrified passengers posted several videos showing their phones and other belongings being sucked out.
According to sources like CBS News, according to FAA documents, the accident occurred on board Alaska Flight 1282, a Boeing 737-9 MAX that was approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in November 2023, just two months before the flight.
FlightAware, a public flight tracking website, reported that at 4:52 PM PT, Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 departed Portland International Airport. Just before 5:30 p.m., the plane returned safely to Portland.
At 16,000 feet, six minutes into the flight, passengers on the plane told KPTV they heard a massive explosion and noticed a hole in the wall where a window had been shattered. A child sitting near the window was allegedly pulled by the suction and his shirt was torn.
A few passengers also lost their phones, which were taken from the plane. The decompression also blew out the window seat.
Many passengers used oxygen masks that fell off the plane while waiting for it to return to the airport. There were six crew members and 174 passengers on board.
Alaska Airlines grounded all of its Boeing 737-9 aircraft after the accident. According to sources like Livemint, Ben Minicucci, CEO of Alaska Airlines, addressed the same. He said:
“Following tonight’s event on Flight 1282, we have decided to take the precautionary step of temporarily grounding our fleet of 65 Boeing 737-9 aircraft.”
Meanwhile, once photos and videos of the incident went viral on X, netizens flooded the comments section of the post uploaded by DramaAlert to express their opinions on the whole matter.
The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that the crew reported experiencing a “pressure issue.” Both the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration said they had opened investigations into the entire incident.
However, shortly after the accident, both Boeing and Alaska Airlines announced that they were in contact with passengers. Fortunately, to this point no injuries have been reported.
