Alaska Airlines passenger involved in lawsuit says: ‘I literally thought I was going to die’

Huy Tran can’t stop thinking about the day a piece of the plane he was on ripped off mid-flight, leaving a door-shaped hole just a few feet from where he sat. 

Tran was a passenger on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, the Boeing 737 jet that made an emergency landing on Jan. 5 after piece of the aircraft covering an inoperative emergency exit behind the left wing blew out.

“I literally thought I was going to die,” the Upland, Calif., man told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. “And that whole horrific experience is still lingering today.”

He is one of seven passengers who launched a lawsuit on Thursday against Alaska Airlines, aerospace company Boeing and manufacturer Spirit AeroSystems. 

The lawsuit, filed in Washington’s King County Superior Court, seeks punitive, compensatory and general damages for alleged negligence, product construction/manufacturing defect liability and failing in its duty to protect passengers from harm.

Boeing, Alaska Airlines and Spirit AeroSystems all declined to comment on pending litigation. 

He didn’t know what was real

Flight 1282 had 171 passengers and six crew on board and was flying at an altitude of more than 4,800 metres when a a door plug — a panel in place of an optional exit door located near the rear of the aircraft — ripped off about 20 minutes into the Jan. 5 evening flight from Portland, Ore., to Ontario, Calif.

Tran remembers the moment vividly. He says he had laid his head back and closed his eyes, when he heard a “swooshing noise.”

“I immediately opened my eyes, and there was already a giant hole in the plane,” he said. “I wasn’t really sure if this was really happening.”

It quickly became clear it was all too real.

He was in the middle seat, one row behind the hole — close enough, he says, that he could have reached his hand out the side of the plane. 

The sound of the wind pressure was overwhelming, he said. He and the other passengers could only communicate by facial expressions. The biting-cold wind made him wonder if he would freeze to death.

He immediately sent a text message to his girlfriend to say that he loved her, and asked her to tell his family that he loved them too.

Meanwhile, his friend Cuong Tran, no relation, was sitting beside him in the window seat, about a foot away from the hole. 

The pressure pulled Cuong’s phone from his hand and ripped the shoes and socks from his feet. His foot got caught in the seat structure in front of him, and was injured so badly that he couldn’t walk on it for week, Huy Tran said.

Cuong told the BBC he believes he would have been ripped from the plane had he not been wearing a seatbelt.

“I remember my body getting lifted up. Then my whole lower body got sucked down by the howling wind,” he said. “It was probably the first time in my life I had a feeling of no control over everything.”

“Somebody is responsible for this’

Both men were both travelling home from a trip to Oregon with their two friends and their three kids when the blowout happened. All seven are plaintiffs in the lawsuit. 

“Our clients — and likely every passenger on that flight —  suffered unnecessary trauma due to the failure of Boeing, Spirit AeroSystems, and Alaska Airlines to ensure that the aircraft was in a safe and airworthy condition,” lawyer Timothy A. Loranger, who filed the suit, said in a press release.

A separate lawsuit against Boeing and Alaska Airlines was filed last month on behalf of 22 other passengers on the flight, also accusing the companies of negligence. Both companies denied liability in that case.

In a preliminary report last month, the National Transportation Safety Board said four bolts that help keep the door plug in place were missing after the panel was removed so workers could repair nearby damaged rivets last September. The rivet repairs were done by contractors working for Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems.

Boeing, under increased scrutiny since the incident, has acknowledged in a letter to U.S. Congress that it cannot find records for work done on the door panel of the Alaska Airlines plane.

The U.S. Department of Justice has also launched a criminal investigation. The probe would assist the department’s review of whether Boeing complied with a settlement that resolved a federal investigation into the safety of its 737 Max aircraft after two deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019.

Earlier this week, a former Boeing employee who had reportedly raised concerns about the company’s production issues died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to a coroner’s report.

WATCH | Are Beoing planes safe? 

The Breakdown | Boeing’s complicated safety history

The National breaks down Boeing’s complicated safety history, what’s changed five years after the Max-8 crashes and the impact of the Alaska Airlines mid-air blowout earlier this year.

With the story still in the news cycle, Tran says he’s constantly forced to relive those moments. He’s suing, he says, because he wants answers.

“Ultimately, I want to know who’s going to take responsibility for this. Because I’ve already heard Boeing and Alaska trying to say it’s not their fault. And that just doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “Somebody is responsible for this.”

Tran is a field service engineer and says he sometimes has to travel for work. But his next flight after Jan. 5, he says didn’t go well.

“Every little sound triggered me or made me suspect or question myself,” he said. 

He hasn’t flown since, he said.

“This cannot happen to other people,” he said. “Getting the attention on it should force them hopefully, to correct this and regain the confidence for people to fly again. Because right now it doesn’t feel safe.”