CNN –
Federal officials investigating the horrific mid-flight explosion of part of the fuselage of an Alaska Airlines plane said the lost part had been found – a key detail in the investigation into what happened during the plane's “explosive decompression” as certain Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft are now grounded nationwide.
A Portland teacher named Bob found the refrigerator-sized door plug for the fuselage door of a Boeing 737 MAX 9 in his yard and contacted the National Transportation Safety Board, NTSB Chairman Jennifer Homendy said at a news conference.
Depending on the configuration desired by an airline, a manufacturer will sometimes use a door plug in place of an emergency exit door.
The component had been missing since it blew off the plane on Friday, leaving a gaping hole in the side of the plane as it flew at 16,000 feet shortly after takeoff from Portland, Oregon, with 177 people on board. The harrowing ordeal – which saw headrests ripped off seats and objects vacuumed from the cabin – has led to nationwide flight bans and a number of flight cancellations.
Complicating the investigation was the loss of important cockpit audio recordings due to a device setting, Homendy said.
“(The explosion) was described to us by the flight crew as a very violent, explosive event when it happened, and you can see that from inside the plane,” Homendy said Monday, a day after she toured the plane.
“We were able to inspect the airframe itself from the outside and did not see any structural damage to the aircraft,” she told “CNN This Morning.” “There was major damage to non-critical components inside.”
There was damage to cladding, insulation, windows and seats, Homendy said.
“It must have been really scary.”
Questions remain about previous warnings about pressurizing the plane and whether other Boeing planes are safe to fly.
“Our focus right now is on this aircraft to find out what happened and how it happened and to prevent it from happening again,” Homendy said. “Once we determine this, we can see if there is a larger issue for which we would like to issue an urgent safety advisory.”
NTSB officials will continue the careful examination of the aircraft's interior and will recover and examine the severed door plug, Homendy said.
Supplier Spirit AeroSystems, which makes the fuselage of Boeing's 737 MAX jets, said it was working with Boeing on the matter.
“We are grateful that the Alaska Airlines crew completed the appropriate procedures to land the aircraft with the safety of all passengers and crew,” the company said in a statement Monday. “At Spirit AeroSystems, our primary focus is the quality and product integrity of the aircraft structures we supply.”
Alaska Airlines has also said it is working with Boeing to find out what happened on Flight 1282.
According to Homendy, in Friday's incident, the airline had restricted the plane's flight from over the ocean to Hawaii to ensure the plane could “return to an airport very quickly” if warning lights on the plane went off.
That decision came after the plane's automatic pressure control light illuminated three times last month, Homendy said. It is unclear whether there is a connection between the warning lights and Friday's incident, she noted.
While the repeated pressure increase warning is “very disturbing to investigators” looking into the problem with Boeing and Alaska Airlines, Homendy said, “it may have absolutely nothing to do with what happened in the cabin of the plane during this event.” is.”
The outage light appeared on Dec. 7 and Jan. 3 and 4 – the days before the bankruptcy, she said. Each time, the flight crew flipped a switch on the system fuse, Homendy said, describing the step as “completely normal.”
“They turned it over, they reported it, it was tested by maintenance and then reset.”
“They ordered additional maintenance to check the light that was previously incomplete (the hull damage). “We want to take a closer look and have requested documentation of all defects since the aircraft was delivered on October 31,” she said.
CNN has reached out to Alaska Airlines for comment on the plane's flight restrictions and warning lights.
The aircraft involved in Friday's incident had been in service for about three months and had flown about 150 times since October 2023, according to FlightAware and FAA records.
National Transportation Safety Board
The NTSB released this image of the aircraft from Alaska Airlines Flight 1282.
Interviews with the flight crew and examinations of the damage left in the cabin shed light on the loud, “violent” and chaotic scene on the plane when the door plug ripped off, causing an incredibly violent loss of pressure and sending flight attendants rushing aside from children on the flight said the NTSB chief.
After the “explosive incident,” flight attendants scrambled to ensure that four unaccompanied minors on board wore oxygen masks and lap belts, Homendy said, praising the flight attendants as “heroic.”
Several passengers on the flight were injured and required medical attention, but all have since been medically healed, the airline said in a statement Saturday.
But “communication was a serious problem” between the pilots and flight attendants, who said they had difficulty sharing information quickly, she added.
“I would like to emphasize that the actions of the flight crew were truly incredible,” she said.
The impact of the event caused damage to the interior paneling, fairing and plastic around the windows in the plane, all of which were “not critical” to the aircraft's structure, Homendy said.
According to Homendy, the damage extended to multiple rows on the plane – not just the row next to the hole. The two seats next to the door stopper – 26A and 26B – were empty when the explosion occurred, but their headrests were ripped off, she said previously. The back of 26A has completely disappeared.
There was no structural damage to the aircraft or airframe, it noted.
The cockpit voice recorder, which records sounds like engine noises and pilot voices, has been “completely overwritten” because devices currently only need to store two hours of audio at a time, Homendy said.
“There's nothing showing on the cockpit voice recorder,” she said, noting that the maintenance team went out to get the recorder operational about two hours later, when the devices begin a new recording cycle.
“We are disappointed that the cockpit voice recorder was overwritten,” Homendy said on Monday.
National Transportation Safety Board
The NTSB shared this image of the Alaska Airlines plane as they investigate the blown door plug.
The audio captured by the recorders was “critically important” to helping investigators understand what happened during the incident, Homendy said. Without them, there are no records of communication between pilots and flight attendants during the crisis.
“Unfortunately, if these communications are not recorded, it will be a loss for (the NTSB) and a loss for the FAA and a loss for safety, as this information is critical not only to our investigation but also to improving aviation safety said Homendy.
Although the Federal Aviation Administration has proposed a new rule that would require new aircraft to extend their cockpit voice recordings to 25 hours, the rule would not require older aircraft to be retrofitted, Homendy noted. The NTSB chief called on the FAA and Congress to require 25-hour recordings on all aircraft.
“I can’t emphasize enough how important this is for safety,” she said.
CNN asked Alaska Airlines about the deleted cockpit audio and the airline's previous decision to ban the plane from flying over the ocean. The company responded in a statement on Monday:
“Because this is an active investigation, we must obtain permission from the NTSB to provide information about the aircraft and its prior maintenance,” Alaska Airlines said. “We have asked the NTSB for permission to answer these questions – they are not allowing us to comment at this time. We will provide information as soon as the NTSB gives us permission to do so.”
Two cellphones that were likely thrown from the plane were found in a yard and on the side of the road and turned over to investigators who might use them as evidence, Homendy said.
“Cell phones have actually helped us determine some things that have happened after tragedies… But it also helps us ask ourselves, 'Are we looking in the right area?'” the agency's chief said just minutes before discovered that the door stopper had been discovered.
Sean Bates told CNN he spotted a phone on the side of a road in Oregon and turned it over to the NTSB, which was already in the area to investigate the accident.
The phone did not have a security lock and a photo of the phone shows an emailed baggage receipt from Alaska Airlines for two pieces of luggage, Bates said.
NTSB spokeswoman Jennifer Gabris told CNN that the agency took custody of the phone on Sunday and has since turned it over to Alaska Airlines.
CNN's Lauren Mascarenhas, Gregory Wallace, Joe Sutton, Pete Muntean, Mike Valerio, Anna-Maja Rappard and Chris Boyette contributed to this report.