The Alaska Airlines pilot who steered 171 passengers and four flight attendants to safety after the plane's door panel blew off didn't realize there was an emergency during the flight, but he knew something was “catastrophically wrong.”
During an emergency landing with the captain at Portland International Airport in January, co-pilot Emily Whiprud feared passengers might have been sucked out of the Boeing 737 Max 9 jet when she turned around and noticed an empty seat.
“The first symptom was an explosion in my ears, followed by a whoosh of air,” Whiprood said. He told CBS News. “I was thrown forward and heard a loud bang. … The flight deck door was open and I could see tubes hanging from the cabin.”
The plane departed from an Oregon airport just after 5 p.m. on January 5th and was bound for Ontario, California.
The horrific mid-air explosion happened six minutes after the plane took off, when it was at an altitude of 16,000 feet.
Whiprood said that neither she nor the captain noticed that the door plug on the left side of the plane had blown off, but they did realize that a serious accident had occurred.
Investigators said four key bolts on an internal plug on the new Alaska MAX 9 were missing, causing the panel to fly off.
“I didn't realize there was a hole in the plane until we landed,” Whiprood said. “I knew something was terribly wrong.”
“It was incredibly loud,” she recalled. “I put on my oxygen mask and tried to contact air traffic control, and I remember thinking, 'Why can't I hear anything?'”
When a panel on the plane blew off, Whiprud's headset was sucked out of the plane, along with two passengers' cellphones and several plane parts.
Whiprood said at one point she turned around and opened the cockpit door, where everyone watching her was quiet and calm, before asking the flight attendant if everyone was OK.
“There were empty seats and some injuries,” one staff member replied.
“I opened the cockpit door and hundreds of eyes were staring silently at me,” she said. She asked a flight attendant if she was OK, and they told her there were “empty seats and some injured” among the passengers.
Whiprood and one of the flight attendants feared they had lost several passengers in the terrifying mid-air explosion.
“I told them there was a hole in the back of the plane and that the passengers were definitely dead,” a flight attendant with nearly 20 years of experience told the National Transportation Safety Board after spotting the hole and seeing five empty seats.
One flight attendant, who did not want to be named, was concerned about a child sitting alone at the back of the plane: “He was sitting there and he was too small to reach his mask and all I could think was he was very scared.”
A teenager sitting near the hole had his shirt ripped from his body by the fast wind.
Amazingly, of the 177 people on board – 171 passengers, four cabin crew and two crew members – no one was killed.
Three passengers suffered minor injuries.
The pilots turned the plane around and returned to Portland International Airport, ending the chaotic flight after 20 minutes.
Three passengers later filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Alaska Airlines and Boeing, claiming the companies ignored clear warning signs and that the dispute should never have begun.
Kyle Rinker and his girlfriend, Amanda Strickland, along with another passenger, Kevin Kwok, filed a lawsuit in Multnomah County, Oregon, late last month on behalf of passengers on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282.
Whiprood spoke alongside Captain Jason Ambrosi, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, who praised the flight crew's behavior during the emergency.
“The most important safety equipment in any aircraft is two well-trained, qualified and well-rested pilots. … This crew instinctively practiced their training and executed it flawlessly,” Ambrosi said.
The co-pilot, who had accumulated about 8,300 hours of flying experience before the accident, praised the flight's captain, who had accumulated about 12,700 hours of flying experience by January 5.
“The captain is a hero, so is the flight attendant, and all the personnel who assisted us that day,” Whiprood said, “and that should be celebrated. Everybody survived.”
Whiprood and the Captain 2023 ALPA Outstanding Airmanship Awards Recognize their skills and professionalism.
