This Tuesday, the AP agency revealed that the plane involved in the incident was not being used on the trip to Hawaii after a warning light that may have indicated pressurization problems came on on three different flights.
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As a precautionary measure, Alaska Airlines decided to stop scheduling long flights over water for that plane, “so that it could return very quickly to an airport” if the warning light reappeared, he said. Jennifer Homendypresident of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) of the United States.
The panel that fell off the Alaska Airlines plane was found in a Portland home. (Photo by Handout/NTSB/AFP).
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According to AP, Homendy clarified that the pressurization light was possibly unrelated to what happened on Friday.
The witnesses speak
Chain cnn He explained that after the explosion, A boy’s shirt was sucked off his torso and out through the hole. Some passengers screamed and cried while texting their loved ones. In addition, oxygen masks fell from the ceiling of the ship.
Reached by phone by CNN, the passenger Nick Hoch33, said that at the time of the incident “a fog or cloud hit me in the face.” He described the experience as “traumatic,” “tense,” and “scary.”
“I was startled and quite scared.“And I think other people were quite disturbed too,” he added. Hoch.
CNN reported that Hoch He was sitting on the left side of the plane, a couple of rows in front of where the detached panel exploded. “There were people much closer that I spoke to that his AirPods came out of his ears“, continued the witness.
Another passenger, Vi Nguyen, told The New York Times that she woke up to a bang.
“I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was the oxygen mask right in front of me.”Nguyen told the newspaper. “I looked to the left and the side panel of the plane was gone,” she explained.
:quality(75)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/elcomercio/26USGI43DVD4RNZY6M323MQECM.jpg "What prevented the tragedy on the Alaska Airlines plane that ended with a hole in the fuselage? 1")
The row where the panel is located was not occupied by any passengers. (Photo by Handout/NTSB/AFP).
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A recording published in liveatc.net and quoted by CNN states that the pilot asked air traffic control for permission to lower altitude, since the incident had occurred at 17,000 feet. “We are declaring an emergency. We need to go below 10,000″, said. At that altitude the air has enough oxygen to breathe safely.
After being granted clearance, the pilot reported to air traffic control: “We are in emergency, we are depressurized, we need to return, We have 177 passengers. The fuel is eighteen eight.”
About 20 minutes after takeoff, the plane landed safely at the airport. portland. No one was injured.
:quality(75)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/elcomercio/5HOJHG5P3VGVNBE3QDQR3LVJZM.jpg "What prevented the tragedy on the Alaska Airlines plane that ended with a hole in the fuselage? 2")
An Alaska Airlines plane seen at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on January 11, 2023. (Photo by Daniel SLIM / AFP).
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What factors prevented a tragedy?
In accordance with Jennifer Homendypresident of the NTSBat least two elements prevented the tragedy of Alaska Airlines.
First, the seats adjacent to the panel that detached from the aircraft were not occupied.
Second, the fact that it occurred shortly after takeoff, without having yet reached cruising altitude, and when passengers were still wearing their seat belts.
At the time of the explosion, the backrest of seat 26A was completely gone, as were the headrests of seats 25A and 26A.
“We are very, very lucky that this did not end in something more tragic”said Homendy. “There was no one sitting in seats 26A and 26B,” close to the panel known as the ‘door plug,’ she added.
The company One Monroe Aerospace explained that this type of panel should always remain closed when the pressure inside the plane is different from that outside.. On larger flights, a gate enabled as a Emergency exit.
:quality(75)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/elcomercio/YN646YALY5DBZBH26GLAHZ3CGY.jpg "What prevented the tragedy on the Alaska Airlines plane that ended with a hole in the fuselage? 3")
The Boeing 737 MAX 9. (AFP).
They find the panel
He panel of the fuselage that broke away from the plane Alaska Airlines was found in the backyard of a home in portland.
The owner of the home notified the NTSB about the object, Jennifer Homendy reported in a press conference on Sunday night
The discovery of the piece may be key to helping clarify what happened.
Besides…
The iPhone that was sucked and still works
Among the numerous objects that were sucked out of the plane and fell approximately 16,000 feet was a iPhonewhich was later found running, ABC News reported.
Sean BatesResident in Washingtonsaid on Sunday that found the iPhone on the side of the road and that it was “still in airplane mode on half battery.”
On his screen he could see the check-in receipt for the suitcases of a plane passenger, according to the images he tweeted Bates.
At the bottom of the image you can see that the charger cable has broken, whose plug is still connected to the phone, said the same Bates in another message on social network X.
“I went for a walk today and found a phone belonging to an Alaska Airlines passenger on the ground.. What better excuse to go for a ride this afternoon than the NTSB had asked people to go and report anything that looked like it had fallen off from the recent accident of Alaska Airlines. Fortunately, no one was hurt or sucked in. But some belongings were lost,” he said later. Bates in a video.
“They were still looking for the door, and I found a phone lying on the side of the road that had apparently fallen 16,000 feet. And I was, of course, a little skeptical at first, I was thinking it might just be that he had fallen out of a car,” he continued. “I found it. It was still pretty clean. There are no scratches on it, it was under a bush and I didn’t have a screen lockso I opened it up and it was in airplane mode with a travel confirmation and a baggage receipt from Alaska Flight 1282, so I had to go call the NTSB,” he explained.
An NTSB official went to the place where the phone appeared. That office confirmed the veracity of the story of BatesABC News said.
Boeing 737 MAX remain grounded
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of USA ordered “immediate reviews of certain Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft before they can return to flight.”
He added that 171 aircraft of this model will have to be inspected, and that each inspection will take between four and eight hours.
According to the AFP agency, Boeing has so far delivered about 218 737 MAX aircraft.
On Sunday, Boeing reported that its CEO, Dave Calhoun, scheduled a safety meeting for Tuesday with all employees at the company’s factory located in Washington state.
The plane involved in the incident was certified in October, according to FAA records.
Alaska Airlines grounded all its planes of that model.
United Airlineswhich has the world’s largest fleet of 737 MAX 9s, indicated that it grounded 46 aircraft and that 33 have already been inspected.
Aeromexico It will ground its 19 B737 MAX-9 aircraft for inspection, the airline said in a statement.
Copa Airlines announced that it grounded 21 aircraft and Turkish Airlines stated that it grounded five aircraft in its fleet.
Icelandair noted that none of its 737 MAX 9s feature the aircraft configuration specified in the FAA grounding order.
:quality(75)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/elcomercio/5OSPHDOQKBCKTLQPOOBYLEFSBI.jpg "What prevented the tragedy on the Alaska Airlines plane that ended with a hole in the fuselage? 4")
The Boeing 737 MAX accidents. (AFP).
The Boeing 737 MAX were grounded for 20 months
The problems for Boeing 737 MAX They are not new. Those planes were grounded around the world for 20 months following a ban following two accidents on MAX 8 in 2018 and 2019 that left 346 dead.
As of late 2020, the 737 Max returned to the air carrying passengers in most markets around the world.
But at that moment the problems for the company did not end. In April of last year, Boeing said it had discovered a manufacturing problem with some planes 737 MAX after a supplier used a “non-standard manufacturing process” during the installation of two accessories in the rear fuselage, although Boeing He insisted the issue did not constitute a security risk, CNN reported.
Last month, Boeing asked airlines to inspect all their 737 MAX to detect a possible loose screw in the rudder system, after an airline discovered a possible problem with a key part on two planes, CNN reported.
