06 January 2024 , 11:51
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Passengers on a flight were left fearing for their lives after a window was ripped from a plane mid-air on Friday night, tearing the shirt off a child and sucking phones from other people's hands.
One child had to be held in his seat by his mother while the child closest to the window had his shirt ripped off him due to the violent depressurisation, with shocking footage emerging on TikTok capturing showing passengers using the emergency oxygen masks as the plane was still in the air.
The Alaska Airlines flight, which left Portland, Oregon for Ontario, Csurealifornia at 4:40 pm, suffered the incident less than an hour into its journey. And stunned passengers described seeing a large section of the plane blown out, with pictures of the result showing a gaping hole in the side of the stricken plane.
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A TikToker captured the drama in a video (Elizabeth/CBS news)
A photo taken after the emergency landing shows the damage to the side of the aircraft (kptv)According to Fox News affiliate KPTV, the person who posted the video said: "A part of the plane flew off not even 20 minutes into our flight."
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"There was no one seated there," a person could be heard saying in the clip. The footage also showed part of the plane missing with the night sky visible just a few feet from where people were sitting.
(FOX 12)The TikToker said that no one was harmed and a caption read: "Girls' trip turned into emergency landing trip." Other users of the site wanted to know more about what had happened, with one person stating: "Can we find out where in the ACTUAL [did] the piece of the plane landed? [sic] On a car, a home, someone walking in the street?", while another said: "And that is just another reason to never take your seatbelt off on a flight."
(UKNIP)
(Elizabeth/CBS news)Alaska Airlines has now grounded their entire fleet of Boeing Max-9 aircraft. The plane that suffered the mishap landed at Portland International Airport and the National Transportation Safety Board has confirmed it is investigating.
The flight, carrying 174 passengers and six crew members, left Portland at 4:52 pm but returned just before 5:30 pm. It rose to 16,000 feet (4,876 metres) before it began descending, according to data on the flight tracking website FlightAware. Alaska Airlines quickly confirmed the incident in a statement, insisting crew on board were "trained and prepared" to deal with it and that such a situation was very rare.
(FOX 12)"The aircraft landed safely back at Portland International Airport with 171 guests and 6 crew members," the airline said in a statement. "The safety of our guests and employees is always our primary priority, so while this type of occurrence is rare, our flight crew was trained and prepared to safely manage the situation."