Pair given seats by torn-out door plug on Alaska flight 1282 arrived late: NTSB

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has published its final official report into the door plug blowout aboard an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-9 on January 5, 2025.  

While most of the details of the report had been laid out at an NTSB board meeting on June 24, 2025, a few details have now come to light that were previously unknown.  

Following the incident, it was widely noted that it was fortunate that no passengers were sat next to the left mid-exit door plug when the Boeing 737-9 experienced rapid depressurization and the panel separated from the aircraft. 

Other passengers sitting away from the missing plug door spoke of the harrowing experience during the emergency, when they saw items onboard the plane being sucked out of the fuselage hole.  

In a footnote of the NTSB report published on July 10, 2025, the agency said that according to Alaska Airlines “two individuals had checked in for seats 26A and 26B but were late arriving at the airport”. Seat 26C was occupied.

NTSBThe NTSB said the pair were subsequently rebooked onto a later flight.

In the report the NTSB said that seat 26A, closest to the fuselage hole, was left deformed and the seatback tray table, support pieces, seatback cushion, and headrest were missing. 

During the board meeting in June 2025, the NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy argued that multiple system failings were behind the door plug separation.  

“Let me be clear: An accident like this does not happen because of an individual, or even a group of individuals. Aviation is much more resilient than that. An accident like this only happens when there are multiple system failures,” Homendy said during her opening remarks.   

She later added: “I cannot overstate the seriousness of this event, which jeopardized the lives of all 177 souls onboard, and perhaps countless others on the ground.” 

During the meeting, the NTSB published an executive summary of the final investigation report that was published on July 10, 2025. 

The summary claimed that Boeing had failed to “provide adequate training, guidance and oversight” to its factory workers. Additionally, the FAA was ineffective in ensuring that the manufacturer addressed “repetitive and systemic” nonconformance issues associated with its parts removal process.     

Alaska airlines Boeing 737 MAX / NTSB“The safety deficiencies that led to this accident should have been evident to Boeing and to the FAA and were therefore preventable,” Homendy said.   

The door plug separated from the aircraft because four bolts that should secure the panel, preventing it from moving upward vertically, had not been in place.   

When the jet was being built, Boeing personnel opened the door plug to allow access so that rivet rework could be performed. However, when the door plug was returned, the bolts were not reinstalled.   

“While Boeing’s procedures called for specific technicians to open or close MED plugs, none of the specialized workers were working at the time the door plug was closed. The absence of proper documentation of the door plug work meant no quality assurance inspection of the plug closure occurred,” the NTSB noted.   

The probable cause stated in the final report 

In its summary of the Alaska Airlines incident, the NTSB said: 

We determined that the probable cause of this accident was the in-flight separation of the left MED plug due to Boeing’s failure to provide adequate training, guidance, and oversight necessary to ensure that manufacturing personnel could consistently and correctly comply with its parts removal process, which was intended to document and ensure that the securing bolts and hardware that were removed to facilitate rework during the manufacturing process were properly reinstalled.  

Contributing to the accident was the FAA’s ineffective compliance enforcement surveillance and audit planning activities, which failed to adequately identify and ensure that Boeing addressed the repetitive and systemic nonconformance issues associated with its parts removal process. 

You can read the full final report on the NTSB website.

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Multiple system failures led to Alaska 737-9 door plug blowout, NTSB concludes

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