A critical piece of the Alaska Airlines Boeing plane that suffered a blowout mid-flight has been found in a schoolteacher’s backyard in Oregon, according to National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy.
“I’m excited to announce that we found the door plug. Thank you, Bob,” Homendy said Sunday evening, returning to the podium after initially concluding her press conference about the NTSB investigation of the Jan. 5 accident involving Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 on a Boeing 737-9 MAX. Shocking social media videos online have shown the moments passengers wore oxygen masks after an airplane door was expelled mid-flight.
“I will not give you Bob’s last name, but Bob contacted us at [email protected] with two photos of the door plug and said he found it in his backyard. Thank you, Bob. I will reach out to you so that I can thank you myself,” she said.
The door plug was considered a key missing component as the NTSB continues to investigate what caused the unused exit door to blow open at approximately 16,000-feet, just minutes after the Ontario-bound flight took off from Portland International Airport. The plane, carrying 171 passengers and six crew members, was forced to make an emergency landing in Portland but no one was seriously hurt.
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“I can say that Bob is a schoolteacher in Portland, so thank you very much, Bob. Bless you,” Homendy added, declining to provide the address where the piece was found. “I can just see the outside of the door plug from the pictures. The white portions, we can’t see anything else. But we’re going to go pick that up and make sure we begin analyzing it.”
Earlier at the press conference, Homendy told reporters that two cell phones had been recovered by community members following the incident — one in a yard and another on the side of the road.
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X user Sean Safyre shared photos of one of the cell phones he claimed to have found on the side of the road.
He said the iPhone was still in airplane mode with half a battery and was opened to baggage claim for ASA1282, deeming the device “perfectly” intact after apparently surviving a 16,000-foot drop.
Before handing over the phone to NTSB officials, Safyre posted another photo showing a broken-off charger plug still attached after the device apparently was “yanked” out of the plane door.
Homendy outlined the first full day of the NTSB conducting investigative work on the aircraft, taking photos, identifying witness marks and components investigators want to send back to NTSB labs to take a closer look at fractures, paint marks or other deformation better seen through a microscope. The systems group documented the entire flight deck and asked about the auto pressurization fail light that Homendy said had illuminated on three previous flights.
In interviews with investigators after the blowout, the flight crew reported hearing a bang before they put on their oxygen masks and the door flew open, Homendy said.
“When this explosive decompression occurred, and the door flew open, the flight attendant reports that she saw the first officer jolt forward. The first officer lost her headset at that moment. It was pulled off. The captain had a portion of the headset pulled off. But they put their masks on, turned on the speaker so they could communicate with folks back in the cabin,” she said. “Communication was a serious issue. Flight attendants reported it was difficult to get information from the flight deck, and the flight deck was having trouble also communicating.”
She praised the “heroic” actions of the flight crew during a very “chaotic” and “violent” situation.
The cockpit voice recorder was completely overwritten.
“There is nothing on the cockpit voice recorder,” Homendy said Sunday, as the investigation into the incident remained ongoing.
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