PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – A pedestrian in Portland recovered a cellphone believed to have been sucked out of Alaska Airlines flight 1282 when the door plug blew from the aircraft on Friday night.
“Found an iPhone on the side of the road,” wrote Twitter user Sean Bates on Sunday afternoon, in a post featuring a photo of the phone. “Still in airplane mode with half a battery and open to a baggage claim for #AlaskaAirlines ASA1282.”
In the image, the phone’s screen appeared to show a baggage receipt for the traveler, sent from Alaska Airlines. There was also a piece of a charger, though no wire, still stuck into the phone’s charging port, suggesting to Barnes that the phone had been “yanked” from the plane with great force.
Otherwise, Bates claimed the phone was “perfectly” intact and said on TikTok it had “no scratches on it.”
In the TikTok video, Bates added he initially went walking in Portland on Sunday after the National Transportation Safety Bureau asked people in the general area of Cedar Hills to report any debris or plane parts that may have fallen from the aircraft — and specifically the door plug, which blew from the plane at around 16,000 feet.
The door has since been recovered after a Portland resident named Bob found the plug in his yard, the NTSB announced.
“Thank you, Bob,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said Sunday night at a news conference, identifying the resident only as “a school teacher in Portland.”
She also said Sunday that two cellphones had been recovered, including the one that Bates found. (Bates, in his post, shared a photo of himself with NTSB investigators shortly after he reported the find.)
Alaska Airlines flight 1282 was forced to make an emergency landing shortly after takeoff on Friday night, when a door plug (used to seal up the space where an optional exit door could be placed) blew off the plane, leaving a hole in the fuselage.
The incident occurred just seven minutes into the plane’s scheduled flight to Ontario, California. The aircraft landed safely back at Portland International Airport.
None of the 171 passengers or six crew were seriously injured but the rapid loss of cabin pressure caused oxygen masks to drop from the ceiling. NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said the two seats next to the part that tore off were unoccupied.
The Federal Aviation Administration has since ordered the grounding of approximately 171 Boeing Max 9 planes until they can undergo inspections “which include both left and right cabin door exit plugs, door components, and fasteners,” the FAA wrote.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
