A door plug that was blown off while an Alaska Airlines plane was in flight was found in the backyard by a Portland school teacher, federal authorities said Sunday.
The critical discovery was announced by the National Transportation Safety Board two days after a missing part left a Boeing 737 MAX 9 with a gaping hole in its fuselage, threatening the safety of more than 170 passengers and forcing it to make an emergency landing. .
“I'm so glad Bob found this,” said NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy, who identified only the educator's last name.
“We're going to go and pick it up and definitely start analyzing it,” she said at a press conference shortly after learning it had been discovered.
Details about Plug, including the address where the missing device landed, were not released. Homendy said it wasn't immediately clear if it was intact.
The door “plug” was one of the few items found by residents around Oregon. Two cellphones, which were sucked out of the plane as it rapidly depressurized through a gaping hole at about 16,000 feet, were also picked up by people on the ground.
One of the cell phones surprisingly survived a large drop and was completely intact, allowing a man who found it on the side of the road to receive an email from the baggage claim of a passenger on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282. Shared by X.
The flight took off from Portland International Airport and headed for Ontario, California, with 171 passengers and six crew members on board.
Officials said the pilots were forced to rush back to the Portland airport after the hole sucked in their belongings and chair headrests and dropped oxygen masks for frightened passengers. .
“It's been described as a very noisy pandemonium between the air and everything going on around us, and it was very violent when there was rapid decompression and the doors were forced out of the plane.” said Homendy.
The NTSB chairman thanked the flight crew for successfully handling the dangerous situation and keeping everyone on board the damaged plane safe.
Earlier Sunday, the NTSB implored residents and business owners to check any doorbell footage, look in backyards or jump onto roofs to look for door plugs and other items from the Boeing 737. Officials said testing it would help authorities. Understand why you failed.
“If it was in someone's backyard, I'd love to see it,” Homendy joked over the weekend before Bob was found, according to CNN.
She said Sunday that after Bob sent a photo of the door plug to the NTSB, she planned to contact him directly to thank him.
Plug's analysis is one of several aspects the board is expected to address during its investigation into this horrific incident.
Homendy said he could not promise to release photos of the blown-off area immediately because they would serve as evidence.
