Alaska Airlines Flight Makes Emergency Landing in Portland After Part of Plane Blows out Mid-Air

All 177 people on the California-bound flight landed "safely" following the accident, per Alaska Airlines

An airplane on its way to California made an emergency landing in Portland after a chunk of the aircraft's cabin blew out mid-flight.

The plane, a 65 Boeing 737-9 aircraft, had just departed for Ontario, California, from Portland, Oregon, when it “experienced an incident,” according to a news release from Alaska Airlines on Friday.

Photos and videos of the trip, Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, obtained by Portland news outlet KPTV show a large section of the airplane’s fuselage missing, at one point with the night sky visible through the gap in the cabin, as well as passengers wearing oxygen masks.

"A part of of the plane flew off not even 20 min into our flight??" one passenger wrote over a clip from the flight shared with the outlet.

“Everyone on the plane is okay,” she wrote over a later section of the video, adding, “Luckily there was no one seated next to” the portion that blew off.

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The airplane initially departed the Portland International Airport at around 4:40 p.m. local time and returned less than one hour later, KPTV reported.

Passenger Diego Murillo told the BBC the hole left in the aircraft was "as wide as a refrigerator,” while another, Jessica Montoia, dubbed the flight a “trip from hell.”

Recalling the moment the part of the airplane blew out, passenger Evan Smith told the outlet, “There was a really loud bang towards the left rear of the plane and a woosh noise,” adding that “all the air masks dropped” afterward.

Smith also claimed there was a young passenger whose shirt was “sucked off him and out of the plane,” and the child’s mom was “holding onto him to make sure he didn't go with it.”

“Part of the plane was missing and the wind was just extremely loud,” passenger Elizabeth Lee told the BBC.

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According to Alaska Airlines, “this type of occurrence is rare,” and they are currently “investigating what happened.”

Hours after the California-bound flight made its emergency landing, Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci revealed that all of the airline’s Boeing 737-9 aircrafts would be temporarily retired for inspection.

“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,” Minicucci said in a statement. “Each aircraft will be returned to service only after completion of full maintenance and safety inspections. We anticipate all inspections will be completed in the next few days.”

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Minicucci reiterated the Airline's earlier statement that they were investigating what had happened, detailing that this process was being undertaken along with Boeing and the National Transportation Safety Board. He also said his “heart goes out to those who were on this flight.”

"I am so sorry for what you experienced,” the CEO wrote. “I am so grateful for the response of our pilots and flight attendants. We have teams on the ground in Portland assisting passengers and are working to support guests who are traveling in the days ahead.”

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