Passenger Jet Whose Door Blew Off Was Already Flagged For Cabin Pressure Warnings
The same plane was banned from long-distance flights over water
You may have heard about the Alaska Airlines incident in which the door was blown off a plane, and it was forced to return to the point of departure in Portland.
A missing ‘door plug’ [ie: the 60 lb piece of the airplane that serves as an emergency exit] that investigators had been searching for was discovered in the garden of a teacher in Portland named Bob, who was not struck by the debris.
The Boeing 737 Max 9 and its 177 passengers, bound for California returned, unharmed, to Portland, making a safe emergency landing.
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Speaking at a news conference, [NTSB chief ] Ms Homendy said pilots reported pressurisation warning lights on three previous flights made by the specific Alaska Max 9 involved in the incident.
The decision to restrict lengthy flights over water was so that the plane “could return very quickly to an airport” in the event the warnings happened again, the NTSB chief added. — BBC
Investigators will have to sort out the details without the help of the voice recorders, which are set to automatically delete after a set period of time unless prevented from doing so.
In the excitement of the missing ‘door plug’ and the emergency landing, nobody took the necessary steps to lock down that recording.
