The stuff of nightmares

Oh my lord. It’d bad enough reading about an airplane accident — thankfully, one that didn’t end in tragedy — in the steady, calm voice of newspaper reporting.

An Alaska Airlines jet with a foot-long hole in its fuselage was forced to make an emergency descent from 26,000 feet and return to Sea-Tac Airport Monday after the plane lost cabin pressure.

The MD-80 jet, which had been en route to Burbank, Calif., landed safely and none of the 140 passengers was hurt. The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating, as is Alaska Airlines.

An aviation expert close to the investigation said the jet was probably struck by a baggage cart while at Sea-Tac and the incident was not reported before the plane took off for Burbank.The damaged area of the plane would have been weakened by the ramp incident and the aluminum skin then likely ruptured once the jet neared its cruising altitude, according to this person, who did not want to be identified.

But then comes the report of the incident from passenger Jeremy Hermanns.

Nothing can describe the helpless feeling you go through during a time like this, when you are absent any control, you cannot breathe, and everyone around is stunned into fear. It all started with a loud bang — the cabin air began to swirl and the engine sound became deafening. As a GA-VFR pilot, I knew something was terribly wrong. As the smell of acrid AV-gas and burning plastic filled the cabin, it created more fear in the eyes of the holiday passengers around me. We were all gripped in silence, surrounded by the white noise from the engines that eerily engulfed the plane into a surreal atmosphere. And as the oxygen masks deployed from the ceiling in a familiar, video-esque manner, we all grasped them in fear — trying to figure out how to breathe through the flimsy pieces of plastic. Parents were the most confused -– as the masks were too large for their babies’ faces and were not easy to put on in such a panicked situation. The next few minutes passed like seconds -– the plane started diving down to a lower level…and fast.

The first moment of some release was the pilot’s voice over the speaker. It had been more than 20 minutes since he last spoke, when he told us we had reached altitude. Now, he told us that we had leveled off at 10K feet and we were heading back to Sea-Tac airport. Again, since I am a pilot -– I had many ideas on how and why this happened. This morning I found out that one of my assumptions was correct -– there was a hole in the plane that caused the decompression. A hole that could have cost many lives, including my own. The enraging fact is that a non-union baggage handler ran into the side of the plane moments prior to take-off…and that it was never reported.

Thank god for the help of an amazing cabin crew and pilot. Without them, who knows what could have happened.

So. Incredibly. Frightening.

(via Royce)

Update: More from the Seattle Times:

Alaska saw an increase in ground-damage incidents at Sea-Tac after it replaced 472 unionized workers in May with workers from Menzies Aviation, based near London, the airline said. The switch contributed to a sharp increase in delayed departures from Sea-Tac.

But none of the incidents presented a flight-safety concern, Boren said Tuesday, and the number of incidents has returned to a more normal level.

[…] Monday’s incident came as the Seattle-based carrier faces renewed questions about its quality-assurance procedures, almost six years after the crash of Alaska Flight 261.

In January 2000, the MD-83 plunged into the ocean off Southern California, killing all 88 passengers and crew.

Federal investigators concluded that the crash resulted from maintenance shortcomings — specifically the failure to lubricate a key part in the plane’s tail section called the jackscrew.

Now the FAA is examining Alaska’s repair practices after three incidents in the past year raised new questions about its procedures for lubricating the part, including Alaska’s oversight of work by outside contractors.

“Drama (Junior Vasquez’ Drama Starts Here)” by Club 69 from the album Much Better/Drama (1997, 10:02).