Boeing’s Mid-Air Emergency Is Very Similar to 2011 Blowout

A dangerous flaw in the original 1960s design of the Boeing 737, thought to have been eliminated, will be the focus of the investigation into the emergency that caused Alaska Airlines to ground its fleet of 65 of the latest 737 model, the MAX.

Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, Canada had been in the air for six minutes, climbing at 440 mph when, reaching a height of 16,000 feet, a side panel of the fuselage, aligned with a row of seats, blew out. The airline reported this as an “explosive decompression”—caused by the sudden release of pressurized air inside the cabin into the far lower outside pressure.

This was almost exactly a replica of what happened to Southwest Airlines Flight 812 from Phoenix, Arizona to Sacramento, California in April 2011. In that case the explosion caused a sudden hole in the roof of the cabin, 50 inches long and nine inches wide–calling in the emergency to air traffic controllers the pilot said “We lost the cabin.” The flight diverted to the nearest airport, Yuma, where it touched down safely but passengers recalled, as in the Alaska event, being terrified for their lives.

Read more at The Daily Beast.