An Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 was forced to return to Portland shortly after departure after experiencing a rapid decompression. The flight was bound for Ontario, California.

"Explosive" Decompression

On Friday, January 5th, Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 was operating from Portland, Oregon (PDX) to Ontario, California (ONT). The flight was operated by a brand-new Boeing 737 MAX 9 registered N704AL.

Flight 1282 departed Portland around 25 minutes late. Shortly after departure, passengers report that the aircraft experienced a rapid, more so an explosive, decompression.

According to the photos that have surfaced, it appears that an entire window and its sidewall blew out. No one was seated there at the time. The photo also shows that the seat itself lost the upper half of its padding, revealing the shell underneath.

No one was injured in this incident and the affected aircraft remains on the ground in Portland. Due to the inconvenience caused to the passengers, it is inferred that Alaska Airlines will sort a replacement aircraft to carry the passengers to Ontario.

Cabin Decompression History

This is not the first time that we have seen one of these decompression events. 

Perhaps the most well-known example is the case of Aloha Airlines Flight 243. In 1988, an Aloha 737-200 was flying from Hilo to Honolulu, Hawaii when an explosive decompression caused a massive hole to tear in the fuselage.

This incident was attributed to poor maintenance and metal fatigue.

A lesser-known incident occurred in 2010 when an American Airlines 757-200 suffered a decompression while flying from Miami to Boston. The decompression caused a foot-long hole to rip in the fuselage. Boeing was faulted for this incident and it was found that the aluminum skin on that 757 was a fraction of an inch too thin. 

Boeing later acknowledged the skin cracking on specific 757s and later resolved the issue. As for this Alaska Airlines incident, it could have been caused due to similar manufacturing issues. However, this is a developing story with more details left to be confirmed.