Alaska Airlines pilot thought passengers were sucked out of plane when door blew on Boeing 737

Emily Wiprud didn’t know exactly what had happened, but the Alaska Airlines pilot was certain something was going very wrong as flight 1282 made its way out of Portland on January 5. "The first indication was an explosion in my ears and then a whoosh of air," Wiprud, an Alaska Airles pilot, told CBS News of the flight, which lost an exterior panel at 16,000 feet and had to make an an emergency landing. "My body was forced forward and there was a loud bang as well...The flight deck door was open. I saw tubes hanging from the cabin." In the chaos, during which the Boeing 737 Max 9 jet lost a large panel called a door plug, her headset went flying out of the aircraft, as did some passengers’ mobile phones. She looked around and saw “empty seats and injuries” and feared some of the passengers had been thrown out of the plane too. Wiprud said she recalls looking down the aisle of the plane and seeing rows of passengers stare back at her, some of them injured. "I didn’t know that there was a hole in the airplane until we landed," she added. "I knew something was catastrophically wrong." An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board later revealed that the jet was missing bolts meant to hold on its door plug, a panel that covers slots in the plane body used for emergency exits and converts them into normal looking windows for passengers. Miraculously, the plane was able to make an emergency landing in Portland with all 177 passengers and crew onboard.<br/>