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THE large part of an Alaska Airlines plane that burst out mid-flight has finally been found after a teacher discovered it in his yard.
Passengers were left terrified after the “refrigerator-sized” part was ripped out of the plane traveling from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California, on Friday.
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The terrifying scenes saw people’s phones ripped from their hands and sucked through the large hole – although it was not immediately clear where they landed.
Bob Sauer, 64, a physics teacher at Catlin Gabel School in Portland, Oregon, eventually found the door in his backyard on Sunday and was instantly astounded.
Sauer said his neighbor insisted he check his backyard since a cell phone from the flight was found nearby their area.
He went searching for the plane’s missing piece with a flashlight and stumbled upon it leaning up on 50-foot cedar trees in his yard, The New York Times reported.
“My heart started beating a little faster,” he said in an interview on Monday,” Sauer told The New York Times.
“And I thought there’s no way.”
The physics teacher believed the trees acted as airbags and kept the part intact when it reached the ground.
He added that the door was cushioned by the trees through the physics term called impulse.
“Impulse is what you do to change the momentum of something,” Sauer said.
“You can do it with a big force over a short time, or a smaller force over a longer time.”
Sauer called the National Transportation Safety Board on Sunday and they came to retrieve the door on Monday morning.
The board said investigators were “currently examining the door plug” and it will go to an agency laboratory in Washington, D.C., for further examination, according to a Monday statement.
WORRYING DISCOVERY
While no-one was sat in the passenger seat next to the door which flung off, Alaska Airlines announced it had grounded all of its Boeing 737 Max-9 flights on Saturday following the incident.
The company said it would focus on “safety” after shocking images showed a hole gaping on the side the plane, with passengers clutching oxygen masks while waiting for assistance.
United Airlines has since added to concerns, becoming the second carrier to find faults with its Boeing 737 Max 9s fleet.
The company said it had found loose parts on multiple grounded MAX 9 aircraft.
“Since we began preliminary inspections on Saturday, we have found instances that appear to relate to installation issues in the door plug — for example, bolts that needed additional tightening,” United said in a statement.
“These findings will be remedied by our Tech Ops team to safely return the aircraft to service.”
A source familiar with the matter told Reuters United has so far found close to 10 airplanes with loose bolts during its preliminary checks.
This figure is up from an initial five first reported by industry publication The Air Current and it’s feared the number could rise.
Alaska Airlines said late on Monday that initial reports from its technicians indicated some “loose hardware” was visible on some aircraft in the relevant area when it conducted checks of its fleet.
The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all Boeing 737 Max 9s with other airlines following the Alaska Airlines incident.
The FAA said that its priority is keeping the public safe at this time and that the planes would remain grounded “until operators complete enhanced inspections which include both left and right cabin door exit plugs, door components, and fasteners.”
“The FAA’s first priority is keeping the flying public safe,” it said in a statement.
“We have grounded the affected airplanes, and they will remain grounded until the FAA is satisfied that they are safe.”
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