Remember a plane’s door blew on a Boeing 737 in January? Now its pilot has spoken up

Mum for over eight months after the horrific January 5 Alaska Airlines incident where a door panel of the Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft blew out in mid-flight, a pilot of the plane opened up, detailing her ordeal and how the situation was brought under control.

First Officer Emily Wiprud was piloting the Alaska Airlines flight which lost an exterior panel at 16,000 feet and had to make an emergency landing.  

‘Deck door was open, tubes hanging from cabin’

In an interview with CBS News, Wiprud said that she didn’t know what exactly had happened, but was certain something was going very wrong as the aircraft took off on January 5 for Portland, Oregon.

“The first indication was an explosion in my ears and then a whoosh of air,” she recalled.  

“My body was forced forward and there was a loud bang as well… The flight deck door was open. I saw tubes hanging from the cabin,” Wiprud said.

She further said that she was still not sure about what had happened and acting upon her instinct, Wiprud and the flight captain sped up for a safe landing.

A hole in the airplane

Wiprud further recalled that she had no knowledge about a hole in the airplane until they landed.  

“I didn’t know that there was a hole in the airplane until we landed. I knew something was catastrophically wrong,” she said.

‘Could not hear anything’

Wiprud further recalled, “It was so incredibly loud."

“And I remember putting the oxygen mask on and trying to transmit to air traffic control and wondering ‘Why can’t I hear anything?’” she further said.  

Wiprud said her headset and multiple aircraft components were sucked out of the plane. Also, multiple objects, including mobile phones of two passengers went flying out of the plane.

The Alaska Airlines flight, with 171 passengers and four flight attendants onboard, was barely about six minutes into its flight between Portland and Ontario, California when the panel, which are also known as door plug, blew out.  

‘Eyes staring right back at me’

For Wiprud, her focus was on accounting for the passengers and crew onboard.  

“I opened the flight deck door and I saw calm, quiet, hundreds of eyes staring right back at me,” Wiprud said.  

She then recalled asking the flight attendants if they were “Okay”, and the crew members told her there were “empty seats and injuries” among the passengers.  

The pilot said she feared they had lost some passengers the moment she heard there were empty seats.

The pilot further recalled a teen aboard the flight had his shirt ripped off his body. She saw the child’s mother on the ground searching for him.

“She looked back and her son was gone. As a mother myself, I can’t even imagine that feeling,” said Wiprud, who has two young children. It turned out that the teen, who had been in the same row where the panel blew out, had quickly moved to another seat,” she said.

Two well-trained pilots are most important safety device on aircraft

The CBS News further quoted Air Line Pilots Association president Captain Jason Ambrosi as saying, “The most important safety device on any aircraft is two well-trained, qualified and rested pilots. This crew instinctually put their training in place and executed just flawlessly."

An investigation carried out by the National Transportation Safety Board revealed that the jet was missing bolts meant to hold on its door plug.

The January 5 Alaska Airline accident prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to temporarily ground all Boeing 737 Max 9s with the same door plug.