The missing door plug that was torn off from an Alaska Airlines flight while in the air has been found by a school teacher in his garden.
Pilots were forced to perform an emergency landing on Friday after a hole was ripped into the side of the Boeing 737 Max 9 plane flying from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario in California.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says the door plug – where the hole was made – has now been recovered by a school teacher from Portland called Bob.
The incident happened after pilots reported pressurisation warning lights on three earlier flights of the same jet model – one in December and two in January.
There were also four unaccompanied minors on the flight, according to NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy, with “heroic” flight attendants ensuring they had their oxygen masks on.
“They heard a bang,” Ms Homendy said of the flight crew, adding a quick-reference laminated checklist was sucked out of the hole, while the first officer lost her headset.
“Communication was a serious issue… it was described as chaos.”
Missing voice recorder data
To compound communication issues, the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) had no data as it was not retrieved within two hours, when recording restarts and previous data is erased.
“It’s a very chaotic event, the circuit breaker for the CVR was not pulled, the maintenance team went out to get it, but it was right at about the two-hour mark,” Ms Homendy said.
“If that communication is not recorded, that is unfortunately a loss for us… that information is key not just for our investigation but for improving aviation safety.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘We are very, very fortunate’
In response to the mid-air incident, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 planes to run inspections, which has caused cancellations to pile up for passengers.
Alaska Airlines said it cancelled 170 flights on Sunday and a further 60 on Monday, with more expected this week.
Three previous warnings
Alaska Airlines pilots had reported pressurisation warning lights on 7 December last year and on 3 and 4 January.
Ms Homendy said it was not clear if there is any connection between those incidents and the rapid depressurisation incident on Friday.
After those warnings, the airline had nonetheless chosen to restrict the aircraft from making long flights over water to Hawaii in case it needed to turn back to an airport, she added.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
You can receive Breaking News alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News App. You can also follow @SkyNews on X or subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the latest news.
