The pilot of the Alaska Airlines plane who lost a door panel mid-flight has spoken about her experience for the first time, describing the moment she “knew something was catastrophically wrong.”
First Officer Emily Wiprud was flying the Boeing 737 Max 9 between Portland, Oregon, and Ontario, California, in January. Six minutes into Flight 1282, there was a sudden loss of cabin pressure just as the plane approached 16,000 feet.
“The first indication was an explosion in my ears and then a hissing sound of air,” said First Officer Wiprud. CBS News.
“My body was pushed forward and a loud bang was also heard… The cockpit door was open. I saw pipes hanging from the cockpit.”
Alaska Airlines First Officer Emily Wiprud recounted the moment a door stopper flew off the plane she was piloting six minutes into Flight 1282 in January.
There were no serious injuries from the horrific failure of the plane’s structure, but passengers’ belongings, including cellphones, flew out of the plane along with the pilot’s headset.
At first, Wiprud said he didn’t know what was happening, but he immediately worked with the captain to get the plane back on the ground and back to Portland.
“I didn’t know there was a hole in the plane until we landed. I knew something was terribly wrong,” Wiprud said.
“It was incredibly loud, and I remember putting on my oxygen mask and trying to transmit to air traffic control and wondering ‘Why can’t I hear anything?'”
The reason Wiprud could not hear anything was because his headphones had been sucked out of the plane after the explosion along with several other objects, including two passengers’ mobile phones.
Wiprud then turned his attention to the 171 passengers and four flight attendants on board the plane.
“I opened the cockpit door and saw calm, silence, hundreds of eyes staring at me.”
This photo shows the missing panel on a Boeing 737-9 MAX after it landed safely.
The Alaska Airlines flight suffered a near-catastrophe when a plug on the plane’s door exploded at 16,000 feet.
An investigator examines the frame of a section of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282
According to the NTSB, crucial screws were missing from the door stopper that exploded on the Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX plane.
Flight attendants reported that everyone was fine but that there were empty seats and some people were injured.
Wiprud feared some passengers might have been sucked out of the plane, but fortunately that was not the case.
A teenager had his shirt torn from his body during sudden decompression.
When the plane finally landed, Wiprud, who has two young children, saw the boy’s mother looking for him.
“She looked back and her son was gone. As a mother, I can’t even imagine that feeling,” she said.
Fortunately, the teenager had moved to another seat after being in the same row where the panel had exploded.
The exploded door panel is also known as a door stopper and is designed to fit into spaces on the plane when airlines do not require doors in those locations. The stopper basically turns the door into a window.
A preliminary NTSB investigation found that four key bolts that were supposed to hold the door stopper in place were missing from the plane.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI also launched investigations and wrote to passengers to inform them that they may have been “victims of a crime.”
Boeing has said it will cooperate fully with any investigation.
Plastic covers the outside of the Boeing 737 MAX’s fuselage plug area after it landed safely
The door stopper was later found in an Oregon teacher’s yard.
Wiprud and his captain on Flight 1282 will be honored with the 2023 Air Line Pilots Association Best Airmanship Award for the skill and professionalism they demonstrated during the incident.
“My captain is a hero. So are the flight attendants, so are all the staff who were there to support us that day and that should be celebrated. They all survived,” Wiprud said.
Air Line Pilots Association President Captain Jason Ambros said it was the quick reaction of airline staff that made the difference.
‘The most important safety feature on any aircraft is two well-trained, qualified and rested pilots… This crew instinctively implemented their training and executed it flawlessly.’