A pilot on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 is opening up for the first time about the terrifying moments when a door panel blew out of the Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft in mid-flight in January.
"The first indication was an explosion in my ears and then a whoosh of air," First Officer Emily Wiprud told CBS News in an exclusive interview. "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 that at that point, she didn't know what was wrong. Instinct took over, and she and the captain started working to land safely.
"I didn't know that there was a hole in the airplane until we landed," Wiprud said. "I knew something was catastrophically wrong."
"It was so incredibly loud," she recalled. "And I remember putting the oxygen mask on and trying to transmit to air traffic control and wondering 'Why can't I hear anything?'"
It would turn out that her headset had been yanked off. Multiple objects, including the phones of two passengers, Wiprud's headset and multiple aircraft components, were sucked out of the aircraft.
The panel, also known as a door plug, is designed to fit into door spaces that aren't typically needed on an aircraft, transforming them into windows. The Alaska Airlines plane was just about six minutes into its flight between Portland, Oregon, and Ontario, California, when the panel blew out at 16,000 feet. The crew would have to make an emergency landing.
Wiprud next focused on accounting for the 171 passengers and four flight attendants on the plane.
"I opened the flight deck door and I saw calm, quiet, hundreds of eyes staring right back at me," she said. She asked the flight attendants if they were OK, and the crew members told her there were "empty seats and injuries" among the passengers.
Wiprud said when she heard there were empty seats, she thought they had lost passengers.
Luckily, no passengers had been sucked out of the plane, but a teen aboard the flight had his shirt ripped off his body. While Wiprud was checking with the flight attendants, she saw the teen'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.
In the end, the plane landed safely, and the reported injuries turned out to be minor.
Wiprud spoke with CBS News alongside Air Line Pilots Association president Captain Jason Ambrosi, who said, "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."
Preliminary results of an investigation by the NTSB found that four key bolts meant to hold the door plug in place were were missing from the aircraft. Investigations were also launched by the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Justice and the FBI, which informed passengers in a letter that they may have been "victim(s) of a crime." Boeing has said it will cooperate fully with all investigations.
Wiprud and the captain of Flight 1282 are being honored with the 2023 Air Line Pilots Association Superior Airmanship Award for their skill and professionalism during the crisis. She said quick thinking by airline staff made all the difference.
"My captain is a hero. Same with the flight attendants, same with all the personnel that was there to support us that day," she said. "And that should be celebrated. Everybody survived."
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