School Teacher Finds Door Plug That Blew Off Alaska Airlines Flight in His Backyard along with Two Fliers' Mobiles

A teacher from Portland, who was identified only as “Bob”, found the missing door plug that blew off an Alaska Airlines flight. The investigators will now use the door plug to understand the reason that led to a midair emergency that opened a hole in the middle of the flight from Oregon to Southern California on the new Boeing 737-9 MAX, US-based news outlet ABC7Chicago said in a report.

The door plug fell out of the plane when it was at 18,000 feet. Authorities said untoward incidents were fortunately avoided because the incident happened when passengers were still required to be wearing seatbelts.

“We are really pleased that Bob found this. He took a picture — 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 that we begin analysing it,” National Transportation Safety Board chief Jennifer Homendy was quoted as saying by ABC7Chicago. She further added that two mobile phones belonging to two passengers that fell out of the plane were recovered and with some of their functions intact.

Moments after the exit door blew out, the cockpit door flew open and the depressurization ripped the headset off the first officer and the captain lost part of her headset, Homendy further added. Homendy also said that the quick reference checklist kept within easy reach of the flight crew also flew out the door.

Boeing fits a “plug” to cover an emergency exit which airlines operating in the US do not use. The gaping hole in the side of the Alaska Airlines jet opened up where the aircraft maker fits that “plug”.

Larger Boeing 737s have emergency exits on fuselages behind the wings to meet a requirement set by the US federal aviation regulatory body which mandates that aircraft be designed in such a way that flyers can evacuate within 90 seconds even if half the exits are blocked.

The more the number of passenger seats there are on the flight, more exits are required. For example, Indonesia’s Lion Air and Corendon Dutch Airlines have more than 200 seats in their Max 9s, so they must have extra emergency exits.

But US airlines like Alaska Airlines and United Airlines have fewer than 180 seats, so the planes don’t need the two mid-cabin exits that US evacuation rules mandate.