plane. alan diehl is a former accident investigator for the ntsb, faa, and u.s. air force and the author of air safety investigators. he joins us from albuquerque, new mexico. sir, thank you so much for your time. you know, what s so mystifying is that this plane was basically not basically, but was brand-new. lost a chunk of its body. i mean, that s anyone s worst nightmare. has it ever happened before? or is it rare for something like this to occur? well, in terms of this type of plugged door, it s been around since 1996 on predecessor 737s. i don t think there s a long history of failure. but yes, you do seem to have failures when planes are brand-new and when they get very old. so it s not surprising. and there was some talk about the fact that they were having
or is it rare for something like this to occur? well, in terms of this type of plugged door, it s been around since 1996 on predecessor 737s. i don t think there s a long history of failure. but yes, you do seem to have failures when planes are brand-new and when they get very old. so it s not surprising. and there was some talk about the fact that they were having problems pressurizing this aircraft. this particular vehicle apparently may have had some kind of leak. now, the ntsb will have to carefully determine whether or not this leak was around that plugged door or not. that door can be opened by mechanics from the outside. obviously it s not intended to be opened from the inside. but we were sure lucky that this happened at a lower altitude and nobody was sitting in the two seats directly adjacent to that plugged door. yeah, that is a really lucky