Alaska Airlines flight incident: Passenger says she was holding her son when the door came off

The incident on the Alaska Airlines flight did not result in serious injuries, but it certainly did traumatize passengers. On Friday, Fay and her son were aboard a Boeing 737 MAX 9 plane that had to turn around after a door was torn off. They sat in the 25th row, directly in front of the gaping hole created by the flight.

She said it was her 15-year-old son on board the plane who appears shirtless in some photos posted on social media. She spoke to The Seattle Times about her experience on condition of anonymity, saying she was “scared” during the incident. She maintains that her son was sitting on the side of the window and she was in the middle of a row of three seats, contrary to other testimony that no one was standing against the window.

The moment the door blew open, Faye remembers the explosion being like a “bomb going off.” She then turns to her son, whose shoulder is facing the void. “He and his seat were pulled back and out of the plane towards the hole,” she explained to the newspaper. “I reached out and grabbed his body and pulled him. “I pulled myself.” She says she then continued to cling to her son, telling him, “It’s okay. This is good. This is good. »

Fay says she was on autopilot after the explosion. “Of course I was terrified,” she says, “but I’m a mother,” and it was about “getting my baby out of here immediately.”

“I hugged her at the end of the flight.”

A third passenger, seated at aisle level, helps them put on their oxygen masks. Fay then realizes that her son is shirtless. At first she thought that her clothes were simply lifted, but then she realizes that they were taken when the door was demolished. The three passengers end up standing up mid-flight to sit further away and out of harm’s way.

Faye says she lost her phone during the incident but found a bag hidden under the seat, along with her son’s shoes and even her car keys. She and her son were injured as a result of the incident, but did not require emergency medical attention. The passenger sitting next to her “was a rock,” she emphasizes. “I hugged her at the end of the flight (…) I told her I didn’t think I could have done it without her. »

United Airlines and Alaska Airlines said Monday that during inspections of defective 737 MAX 9 doors, they found “bolts that need tightening” like the one that came loose on an Alaska Airlines flight Friday. The FAA, the US civil aviation regulator, announced on Tuesday in a statement sent to AFP that “all Boeing 737-9s with a blocked door (will) remain grounded until (the agency) determines they can be used again .