Six Alaska Airlines passengers have sued Boeing after their horror flight in which a door plug popped out at 16,000 feet, forcing a dramatic emergency landing in Oregon.
A family member of one of the passengers aboard Flight 1282 joined the class action lawsuit Thursday in King County Superior Court in Seattle.
The lawsuit claims they are entitled to compensation for injuries sustained during the incident.
“While everyone is glad that the explosion occurred while the crew was still able to land the aircraft safely, this nightmarish experience has caused economic, physical and lasting emotional consequences that have understandably deeply affected our customers and is another worrying sign for those affected.” “737 MAX series aircraft,” attorney Daniel Laurence, representing the passengers, said in a statement.
Boeing told : “We have nothing to add” when asked about the lawsuit.
Six Alaska Airlines passengers have sued Boeing after their horror flight in which a door plug popped out at 16,000 feet, forcing a dramatic emergency landing in Oregon
The missing door panel was found Sunday evening in high school physics teacher Bob Sauer's backyard. It has since been returned to an NTSB laboratory in Washington for further examination
In an earlier statement, the manufacturer said it is “committed to ensuring that every Boeing aircraft meets design specifications and the highest safety and quality standards.”
“We regret the impact this has had on our customers and their passengers,” Boeing said Monday.
A Boeing 737 Max 9 took off from Portland, Oregon, bound for California on Friday evening when just 20 minutes later, at 16,000 feet, its door plug popped out and fell to the ground.
The plane was forced to make a harrowing emergency landing as passengers believed they were saying a final goodbye to their loved ones.
There were 171 passengers and six crew members on board the plane when the piece fell from the plane.
Federal officials searched for days for the plane's lost parts to help with their investigation. During the investigation, authorities also ordered similar aircraft to be grounded.
The missing door stopper was found by Bob Sauer, 64, a Portland high school physics teacher, in his backyard Sunday evening, days after the incident.
Sauer said he was walking into his tree-lined yard that evening with a flashlight when he saw “something shimmering white under the trees in the background that isn't normally there,” he told Portal on Monday.
Alaska Flight 1282 took off from Portland shortly after 5 p.m. on Friday when a window shattered at 16,000 feet and federal investigators are now trying to find the missing part
Bob Sauer found the missing door in his backyard and said that the tree it was caught in acted like an airbag and that he did not believe it was damaged in the fall
He had found the 26-by-46-inch, 63-pound panel known as a mid-cabin door plug, replacing an exit often installed on planes designed to carry more passengers.
The panel was sent to an NTSB laboratory in Washington for further investigation, the agency said.
Sauer, a science teacher at Catlin Gabel School whose students had just learned about the physical principles of momentum and impulse, said his trees acted like an airbag.
“I don’t think the door was damaged at all by the fall,” he said.
Sauer also said he was outside when the door plug landed, so he didn't hear anything.
In a separate interview with Good Morning America, Sauer said he was careful not to touch the connector before the NTSB arrived.
Investigators had originally asked for help finding the door stopper after the incident, saying they believed it was in Cedar Hills – the location where it was ultimately found. Cedar Hills is located in Washington County, Oregon, approximately seven miles west of Portland.
The missing door was found around the same time Alaska Airlines announced it had canceled 170 flights on Sunday and another 60 flights on Monday so investigators could inspect the plane.
It later emerged that the plane had been banned from long-haul flights over water after a cabin pressure warning light came on on three previous flights.
Pilots reportedly noticed warning lights flashing to indicate a loss of cabin pressure. However, Alaska Airlines said it was reported and resolved “under approved maintenance procedures,” according to the Seattle Times.
A photo shows the blown out area. It is offered as a door on the plane. Alaska decided against this option, even though the frame of the future door was completely torn out by the hull damage
One of the missing cellphones was found by video game designer Sean Bates, who said he picked it up while taking a walk. An email popped up on the phone with a baggage receipt from Alaska Airlines
Federal investigators also said that data from the onboard voice recorder was lost because it was not reset within two hours of the emergency landing.
Cockpit voice recorders are found in all aircraft and are used to record the voices of the flight crew and any sounds in the cockpit.
According to the NTSB website, the device is capable of recording for up to 25 hours and resets every two hours. Because it was not reset in time, it is not known what was said at the time of the emergency.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators have celebrated the miracle that all passengers and crew aboard the Boeing 737-9 Max survived.
Sunday was the first day that investigators fully examined the bizarre incident that left one person with non-life-threatening injuries and forced Alaskan Airlines to ground dozens of its Boeing 737-9 MAX jets for urgent safety checks.
Several other airlines have also decided to ground planes of this model as critics have pointed to other fatal crashes and system failures on this type of jet in recent years.
Jennifer Homendy of the National Transportation Safety Board said the explosion at 16,000 feet was an “accident, not an incident.”
Its catastrophic failure caused the cabin to depressurize, and the force of the air ripped the shirt off a small boy whose mother was holding him. Passengers also watched as their phones were sucked into the night sky.
One of the missing cellphones was found by video game designer Sean Bates, who said he picked it up while taking a walk. In a series of posts on
When Bates found the phone, it displayed an email with a baggage receipt from Alaska Airlines.
Bates added that when he contacted the National Transportation and Safety Bureau, he was told it was the second such phone found.
He then posted images that showed the charger plug was still in the phone, suggesting it had been ripped out.