Teen on Alaska Airlines flight took selfie seconds after his shirt was sucked off his body

A teen on an Alaska Airlines flight to Ontario took a selfie just seconds after his shirt was sucked off his body.

Last Friday (5 January), a Boeing 737 Max 9 plane from Portland, Oregon, was forced to make an emergency landing after a rather bizarre incident.

Not long after taking off, part of the aircraft’s fuselage and a window were completely blown out.

See footage from the incident here:

Turns out, a plug covering an unused exit door on the Alaska Airlines plane blew off as it cruised around three miles over Oregon.

The flying lost door plug ended up being found on Sunday in someone’s back garden.

Passenger Evan Smith told local broadcaster KATU: “You heard a big loud bang to the left rear. A whooshing sound and all the oxygen masks deployed instantly and everyone got those on.”

Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt and the aircraft landed safely – but this lad did end up topless.

Kelly Bartlett was one of the 177 passengers on the plane and wrote to her Instagram about what happened to teen in the middle seat nearest to the blow out.

KPTV

"Friday night I was on the plane from Portland in which a wall panel blew out fifteen minutes into our flight,” she wrote.

“We had just passed 10,000 feet when there was a loud boom and the plane filled with wind and noise and the oxygen masks dropped. Three rows behind me was a hole in the side of the plane.

“There was chaos for a couple of minutes while everyone grabbed their masks and the people in the row of the missing wall found new seats on the other side of the plane.”

Next to Bartlett was an empty seat, which a ’15-year-old kid’ ended up jumping in.

“He had no shirt on because it had been sucked off when the panel blew,” she explained.

Instagram/Kelly Bartlett

“He had been sitting in the middle seat of the fated row. His mom was in the aisle seat, and thankfully, no one was in the window seat."

With a hole in the side of the plane, it was too loud for the passengers to chat so Bartlett used her phone’s notes app to check the lad was alright.

“Between that and hand gestures, he told me he was OK, and I knew he meant physically. I could see redness on his skin, which I guessed was windburn,” she wrote.

Following the incident, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) made the decision to ground all 171 737 MAX 9 planes that are operated by US airlines.

According to PA, Alaska has 64 other Max 9s, and United Airlines owns 79 of them. No other US airlines operate that model of the Boeing 737.

In an update, Alaska Airlines has said there are ‘initial reports’ of ‘loose hardware visible on some aircraft’.

It continued: "As of today, Wednesday, Jan. 10, Alaska Airlines continues to wait for documentation from Boeing and the FAA to begin inspection of our 737-9 MAX fleet.

"We regret the significant disruption that has been caused for our guests by cancellations due to these aircraft being out of service. However, the safety of our employees and guests is our highest priority and we will only return these aircraft to service when all findings have been fully resolved and meet all FAA and Alaska’s stringent standards."

Topics: US News, World News, Travel

Jess Battison

Jess is an Entertainment Journalist with a love of all things pop culture. Her main interests include keeping up with the Twitter girlies, waiting for a new series of The Traitors and losing her voice at a Beyoncé concert. She graduated with a first in Journalism from City, University of London in 2021 and has previously worked at MyLondon.

@jessbattison_