Tragedy may have been averted Friday night when a panel of Boeing plane blew out as the Alaska Airlines flight traveled at 16,000 feet, an NTSB official said Saturday night.
some cases have brought odown te plane. a turkish plane came down because of it. so it is a very big deal and the passengers are fortunate that they were belted in and no one went out. on other flights with rapid decompression, parts of the aircraft have been lost and passengers or crew have been lost, as in aloha airlines, which was not a door, it was part of the roof of the plane in the 80s. so it s a very big deal for boeing, the airline, and all operators of this aircraft. i m taken by what you just said, that this has happened before, including with a turkish airline. tell us the worst case scenario. as i understand it, there was no one, thankfully, sitting at that window seat. i think the new york times is reporting there was a teenage boy and his mother in the middle, in the aisle seat. i m assuming they had their seat belts on. but what could have happened in the worst case? well, in the worst case scenario, and it s well documented in aviation accident
hole in the fuselage? we re actually not talking about a window. you re correct. we re talking about a door. and that is also what makes this a very big issue for boeing and for airlines who operate this aircraft. on this aircraft, this model aircraft, and others in this line of aircraft, in the max line, the airlines can order it with this door, which is really a door blocked off on the inside and looking like a window, and you can increase capacity. what has happened is this door panel has blown out and that s a really big deal not only for boeing and this model, but in history, because loss of the door in flight can lead to what s called rapid decompression, which the faa and ntsb, everyone warns could cause loss of the aircraft itself. what that means is a major part of the aircraft has blown out and it rapidly decompresses the aircraft. in previous incidents where you have lost a door in flight in
york, from another family home in north carolina. and that their grandchild is 2 years old. investigators are expected to be at the scene later today. brian todd, thank you. thank you so much. joining us now aviation correspondent. good morning to you. what can be ruled out right now? a lot can be ruled out here, poppy. but all of the signs point to that this was a rapid dep decompression of this cessna jet. the air inside is pressurized enabling those to breathe normal air while outside the air is thin and unbreathable. this is very similar, very likely, to the payne stewart crash that killed that professional golfer onboard a learjet. what is so interesting about rapid decompression is it leads to a ghost plane, one of the spookiest outcomes. up high in altitude when the airplane decompresses very