Flight attendants recently provided details about the incident that occurred on January 5th aboard Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, which was traveling from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California, when a door panel flew off during the flight. Fox Business report.
The National Transportation Safety Board held a hearing Tuesday about the horrific accident on a Boeing 737 MAX 9 plane carrying 171 passengers and six crew members.
“Safety culture needs a lot of work.”
The plane eventually landed safely at Portland International Airport, but the incident remains under investigation. Eight passengers reported minor injuries.
At Tuesday’s hearing, interviews with flight attendants who were on the plane that day were made public.
Officials said a flight attendant thought some passengers had been sucked off the plane after noticing a door panel missing and five empty seats around it.
The flight attendant testified, “They said there was a hole in the rear of the plane, so there was no doubt that the passengers were dead.”
Additionally, employees expressed concerns about children traveling on planes without a companion.
“All I could think was he was sitting there and he was too small to reach the mask and he was probably very scared,” the flight attendant said.
Another flight attendant on the plane told authorities: “I think she said (blurred) ‘There’s a hole and people may be dead’. Then we kind of lost contact. We called back and tried to yell into the phone but couldn’t hear anything.”
“Probably the scariest thing was not having proper communication with the guys in the cockpit. At first we didn’t know if the depressurization was happening up front or if the pilot was there, and we didn’t have good communication with the rear,” the second flight attendant said.
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy stated On Tuesday, both the commission and Boeing said they had not been able to determine who was responsible for removing the jet’s door plugs to perform maintenance work before the plugs were reinstalled and delivered to Alaska Airlines.
Homendy said the committee was not able to speak to the door plug team manager, who may have been one of the people responsible for inspecting the panel before it was delivered to Alaska Airlines with all four bolts missing.
“Boeing needs to work hard to create a safety culture,” Homendy said. “Based on the evidence and the interviews, there is no safety culture. There is not much trust among employees and there is a lot of distrust.”
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