by
CNN
—
Emily Wiprud, the first officer on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 on Jan. 5, said she initially thought people had died when the plane’s door latch blew off shortly after takeoff, according to an interview with CBS News on Wednesday.
“I opened the cockpit door. And I saw silence. Hundreds of eyes staring right at me. And I looked at my flight attendants and I said, ‘Are you OK?’ And in that answer I heard, ‘hole,’ ‘four, five empty seats,’ and ‘injuries.’”
Wiprud said she thought people had been blown out of the plane. But the crew was able to quickly determine that all passengers and crew had been found.
“I remember it didn’t take long before we could confirm that we had 177 souls on board,” Wiprud said. “I was so grateful. I was in shock.”
A door plug, a part of the fuselage that takes the place of an emergency exit door on planes with certain seating configurations, had blown off, leaving a gaping hole in the side of the plane. Federal investigations would later reveal that Boeing had delivered the 737 Max plane to Alaska Airlines without four bolts designed to hold the door plug in place.
Wiprud said she felt from the cockpit that something terrible had happened, but she did not immediately realize that the door plug had burned through.
“The first indication was: It was an explosion in my ears. And then a whooshing sound. My body was pushed forward and there was a loud bang,” Wiprud told CBS in her interview. “I didn’t know there was a hole in the plane until we landed.”
She said the sound of air rushing through the plane was “so unbelievably loud,” and that after Wiprud put on her oxygen mask, she couldn’t hear anything through her headset. The reason: Her headset was no longer on her head. It had been ripped off when the cabin depressurized.
Wiprud assisted in the safe landing of the aircraft. No one on board was seriously injured.
Despite months of investigations and hearings, many questions remain about the incident. For example, Boeing and the National Transportation Safety Board do not know how the 737 Max was delivered to Alaska Airlines without the four bolts.
The incident severely damaged Boeing’s reputation for safety and quality. The company replaced its CEO and now has a court monitor to oversee compliance with federal safety standards.
