Certain Boeing Max jets grounded after Alaska Airlines emergency landing

The Federal Aviation Administration is ordering the "temporary grounding of certain Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft," the model of Boeing plane involved in the Alaska Airlines blowout incident.

The FAA said the planes must be parked until emergency inspections are performed, which will “take around four to eight hours per aircraft.” 

The order impacts 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 jets, the agency said. 

The Max was famously subject to a nearly two-year grounding after two fatal crashes of its Max 8 model involving a different flaw.

The short, terrifying journey of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 on Friday could have been much worse.

When a part of the fuselage blew off shortly after takeoff, a boy’s shirt was sucked off his torso and out through the hole, passengers reported, leaving the mother holding the boy.

“It tore off her son’s shirt!” a man can be heard saying on video posted to Twitter by passenger Stephanie King.

The flight had reached 16,000 feet after taking off from Portland, Oregon, bound for Ontario, California, about 5:07 p.m., according to FlightAware. It landed safely about 20 minutes later back at the airport, with no serious injuries among the 171 passengers and six crew members.

Shortly after takeoff, a panel, including a window, popped off, passenger Kyle Rinker told CNN. “It was really abrupt. Just got to altitude, and the window/wall just popped off.”

“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,” passenger Evan Smith told CNN affiliate KATU.

“We’d like to get down,” the pilot told air traffic control, according to a recording posted on liveatc.net. “We are declaring an emergency. We do need to come down to 10,000.”

After being granted clearance to come to a lower altitude, the pilot told air traffic control, “We are emergency, we are depressurized, we do need to return back to, we have 177 passengers. Fuel is eighteen eight.”

Passenger Emma Vu said passengers comforted each other.

“The flight attendant came over, too, and told me it was going to be OK,” Vu told CNN. “The fact that everyone was kind of freaking out and she took that time to kind of make me feel like I was the only passenger – honestly that was really sweet.”

Passengers applauded as the plane landed, King’s video shows.

Some passengers stood up. Flight attendants reminded them to remain seated.

One man can be heard saying, “There’s a f—in’ hole inside the plane. What the f— is that?”

The National Transportation Safety Board has sent a “Go Team” to Portland, Oregon, to investigate the dramatic accident that prompted an Alaska Airlines jet to make an emergency landing shortly after takeoff, the agency announced Saturday morning.

Photos from passengers appear to show that a section of the Boeing 737 Max 9 — a fuselage plug, which appears to passengers like the typical interior of a commercial jet, with a side and window — blew off in flight, causing decompression.

Firefighters were called to assess minor injuries after the landing, and no serious injuries were reported, the Port of Portland Fire Department said.

The team of experts will arrive on scene later today,” the NTSB said in a statement. Jennifer Homendy, the chair of the NTSB, will also be on scene, according to the agency.

The NTSB is expected to hold a news conference with information about the incident later today.

More on the federal response: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has been briefed on the Alaska Airlines incident and remains “in close contact with FAA on the response,” Buttigieg said in a post on X.

Buttigieg said he is “grateful to the flight crew that kept passengers safe during this terrifying incident.”

CNN's Pete Muntean contributed reporting to this post.

Alaska Airlines has temporarily grounded its fleet of Boeing 737-9 Max aircraft after one of its planes made an emergency landing in Oregon on Friday, officials said – an incident that a passenger says involved a section of the plane blowing out in flight.

Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, which was headed from Portland to Ontario, California, returned safely to Portland International Airport around 5 p.m. PT after “the crew reported a pressurization issue,” the Federal Aviation Administration said.

A panel of the fuselage, including the panel’s window, popped off shortly after takeoff, passenger Kyle Rinker told CNN.

Firefighters were called to assess minor injuries after the landing, and no serious injuries were reported, the Port of Portland Fire Department said.

A passenger’s video posted to social media shows a side section of the fuselage, where a window would have been, missing – exposing passengers to the outside air. The video, which appears to have been taken from several rows behind the incident, shows oxygen masks deployed throughout the airplane, and least two people sitting near and just behind the missing section.

In a statement late Friday, Alaska Airlines said it was working with Boeing to understand what took place on Flight 1282

The airline’s grounded fleet of 65 Boeing 737-9 aircraft is expected to undergo full maintenance and safety inspections over the next several days before being returned to service, the airline said.

Though the airline has acknowledged an incident on Friday’s Flight 1282, it has not detailed what the incident entailed. The plane “landed safely back at Portland International Airport with 171 guests and six crew members,” the airline said.

According to FlightAware, the flight was airborne for about 20 minutes. The plane departed from Portland International Airport around 5:07 p.m. local time and landed at 5:27 p.m. on Friday.

Officials at Portland International Airport told CNN that one person was transported to a local hospital Friday when an Alaska Airlines plane had to make an emergency landing after part of its fuselage were blown out shortly after takeoff.

An airport spokesperson told CNN that the Port of Portland Fire Department responded to the scene to assess minor injuries, and there was one medical transport called.

The spokesperson told CNN that no serious injuries were reported.