A passenger on board a plane in which part of the fuselage exploded while in the air said the experience was “disturbing” and “confusing”.
An Alaska Airlines plane was forced to make an emergency landing after developing a puncture Ripped into the side of a Boeing 737-9 MAX on saturday.
Nicholas Hoch said every minute felt like an hour after a “big bang” or “small explosion” was heard.
“This was immediately followed by a rapid drop in cabin pressure consisting of moisture and fluid – like a cloud rushing from the front to the back of the aircraft,” he told Sky News.
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“We are very, very lucky.”
“My head was spinning the whole time trying to figure out what was happening, what kind of danger we were in.”
He added that the oxygen masks fell off, and soon the flight attendants were communicating with the passengers via the intercom, shouting, “Put on your masks” and “Put on your seat belts.”
The “boy” who sat in the row where the hole occurred had his shirt torn and was sucked out of the plane.
He added that while the plane was “fluttering” and the lights were “flashing”, passengers heard no further communication and were not informed of the impending emergency landing.
Hoch, who was sitting 10 rows away from the pit, said the general atmosphere on board was “weird,” and the passengers around him were “mostly quiet.”
His hat was blown off his head, while the hair of the people in front of them was “pushed back”.
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The flight suffers a mid-air explosion
He added: “When you're in that situation, there's not much you can do but hang on… There were a few people who were clearly and frankly upset.”
“We had a few people standing on the plane and they were shouting some obscenities – shouting ‘There's a huge gap'… People deal with these situations in different ways.”
He added that the flight was delayed about 20 minutes, and “things started to get worse” five minutes after take-off.
“I think the whole thing lasted about 20 to 30 minutes, but it felt like four hours.”
Photograph: Elizabeth Low/AFP
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Hoch said the pilot did a “good job” and spoke to the flight once the plane landed, but they were left “standing for hours” waiting to hear their next move.
He said he felt like a “fish out of water”, but he boarded another flight the same night and is scheduled to take a “long flight” later this week.
He added that the airline has since contacted him to apologize and offer a refund and compensation, but there is still no trace of his luggage, which is still missing.
