'I don't want to die': a door fell off an Alaska Airlines plane at an altitude of 5 km

On January 5, an Alaska Airlines plane lost its emergency door during flight. Passengers shared horrifying details of the hellish flight. One girl sent her parents a farewell message from a falling plane, reports New York Post.

Photo: IStock

Emma Wu was sleeping in seat 18B on board Flight 1282 when the Boeing 737-9 MAX, carrying 171 passengers and six crew members, suddenly lost altitude. A piece of its fuselage broke off at an altitude of about 4,8 km and left a gaping hole in the Boeing's body.

“The masks have been dropped. I’m so scared right now,” Wu wrote to her parents in messages she posted in the TikTok video. The video shows her wearing an oxygen mask in the cabin of the damaged plane during a flight from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California.

“Please pray for me. Please, I don’t want to die,” she wrote.

Wu said it was "very scary" and "very surreal."

“I woke up to the plane just falling. I knew it wasn't just normal turbulence because masks fell out from above. And that’s when panic definitely started to take over the plane,” she recalls. “You just think it will never happen to you, and then it literally happened to me.”

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She said she wanted to thank the passengers next to her and the flight attendant for trying to calm her down.

“I am so grateful to the two women who sat on either side of me,” Wu said. “They massaged my back, calming me down.”

What happened on board the plane

In another post, Wu detailed how the harrowing events unfolded.

“I fell asleep, we probably flew for about 20 minutes. Suddenly I felt the plane losing altitude, masks falling out, and people screaming in fear,” she says.

Wu said flight attendants handed out oxygen tanks to passengers who needed them.

“I was terrified because there was no oxygen coming. This is literally what they tell you during the safety explanation - don't worry, you'll get oxygen. But during an emergency, you don't think about it... It was so scary,” she says in the video.

“The pilot told everyone to put their masks on before helping others, which is literally word for word what you hear in a safety briefing. It was so surreal,” Wu said.

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Compensation and great stress

She said the airline sent an email to passengers apologizing and promising to refund the cost of the ticket, and offered a $1500 surcharge for “any inconvenience.”

“All I got was free snacks and a comp flight with more legroom,” Wu said in her video. She added that she believes Alaska Airlines should pay for the therapy.

“I don't know, I just don't think a free flight with more legroom, free water and snacks is enough,” she added.

Meanwhile, another passenger also said she was afraid the plane would crash.

“We literally thought we were going to die,” said Sreysoar Un, who was flying with her 12-year-old son Josiah McCall.

Josiah said he saw his phone and a teddy bear, given to him by his Cambodian grandmother, fly out of a shelf that was one row ahead of them. The boy held his mother's hand, but could not talk to her, because they were wearing oxygen masks, and there was icy air in the cabin.

“We declared an emergency,” the pilot said. — We had a depressurization. We really needed to go back."

Another passenger, 44-year-old Christopher Hickman, said he heard a woman screaming: “My son’s shirt was ripped off!”

He said people thought the plane's window had fallen out.

The woman who was sitting next to Hickman asked to hold his hand. He squeezed the woman's hand and the hand of his mother in the seat next to him.

“We were just trying to comfort each other at that point,” Hickman said.

Evan Granger, a passenger sitting in exit row seat 16F, said he heard a "loud crash" followed by a "gust of wind that came through" into the cabin.

“I didn’t want to look back to see what was happening,” he said. “At that moment, my only focus was on breathing with the oxygen mask on and trusting that the flight crew would do everything they could to keep us safe.”

Granger said there were "so many things that needed to be done right for us all to survive" and that he was "very grateful" that the plane landed safely.

Passenger Elizabeth Le also said she heard a loud noise.

“Suddenly I heard the sound of a big explosion and didn’t know exactly what was happening. I looked up and saw oxygen masks hanging from the ceiling,” Le said.

“And then I look to the left and I see a huge hole, it’s like part of the plane is missing,” she said, adding that passengers remained in their seats and fastened their seat belts.

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“I couldn’t think straight because of the strong wind,” Le said. “I just couldn’t believe my eyes.” There's a gaping hole there. You could see the city, the stars and everything else right through it. It was crazy."

A Portland schoolteacher found a fallen door in his backyard, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

“We are very pleased that Bob found her,” said NTSB Chairman Jennifer Homendy. “We’re going to pick up all the pieces and definitely start analyzing them.”

Homendy also said on Jan. 7 that the plane was not used for flights to Hawaii after a warning light came on on three previous flights that could indicate a pressure problem.

Alaska Airlines has restricted the plane from long flights over water so the plane "can return to the airport very quickly" if the warning light comes on again. It is not yet known whether there is a connection between the indicator light and the incident.

“We understand how extremely sad this incident must have been. We are grateful to you and our team for your calm and patience throughout this experience. We are fully investigating this incident and will work with authorities to understand what happened,” the airline said in an email.

Cancellation of flights

Alaska Airlines and United Airlines have canceled hundreds of flights after the Boeing 737 Max 9 incident, reports CBS.

As of Monday morning, Alaska Airlines had canceled 139 flights, or 20% of its scheduled departures, and United Airlines had canceled 204 flights, or 7% of its departures, according to FlightAware, which tracks commercial aircraft flights.

The US Federal Aviation Administration has grounded all types of Boeing 737 Max 9 until it is "sure they are OK."

Alaska and United are the only two U.S. passenger airlines that fly the Max 9. The companies operate nearly two-thirds of the 215 Max 9s in service around the world, according to aviation analytics company Cirium. The incident prompted Alaska and United to ground their entire fleet of 65 Max 9 planes.

Alaska Airlines said passengers whose flights are canceled will be transferred to the next available flight or can request a replacement or refund without any fees under its flexible travel policy.

As of the morning of Jan. 8, Alaska Airlines had canceled 139 flights, or 20% of its scheduled departures, and United Airlines had canceled 204 flights, or 7% of its departures, according to FlightAware, which tracks commercial aircraft flights.

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