Alaska Airlines survivors speak out after mid-air Boeing door blow out: 'Don't play with our lives'
Joan Marin heard the explosion before she felt it.
The roar was more powerful than anything she'd experienced in her life. A plug door that had once secured the 171 passengers and six crew members of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 traveling from Portland, Oregon to Ontario, California, was suddenly nothing more than a gaping hole.
Winds aggressively bit and hissed at the torn edges of the aircraft.
Joan Marin watched in horror as a young man's trembling hands lost grip of his cell phone, succumbing to the brutal strength of the atmosphere's pressurized suction.
The phone launched from his hands and out the plane's hole; a gaping and roaring creature's mouth, ferociously guzzling and slurping down its prey.
Joan Marin felt her blonde hair whipping in the direction of the gaping hole, she pressed her glasses forcefully to the bridge of her nose, fearing they too could be sucked out of the plane and into the dark night sky.
She held on for dear life.
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Joan Marin and her husband, Gilbert Marin, occupied the window and middle seats, a mere two rows behind the blown-out plug door. Their 13-year-old dog, Toby, was secured in his carrier underneath Gilbert Marin's window seat.
The couple was returning from a trip visiting their daughter out in Connecticut. While the two normally fly direct, the many delayed and canceled flights over the holidays landed them tickets with a pit stop in Portland.
The plan was for a short layover, before they boarded the Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet and carried on home to Riverside by way of Ontario airport.
At 10,000 feet in the air, their pilot announced that the flight crew would be around shortly with the complimentary food and drink service. Just as soon as the plane reached cruising altitude, or about 30,000 feet.
But at 16,000 feet in the air, Joan Marin was startled by the tremendous boom, the raging winds and petrifying fear.
As fellow passengers groaned and cried, Gilbert Marin looked down to see Toby's carrier straining in the wind's grasp, veering in the direction of the plane's hole.
He snatched Toby up into his arms. Gilbert Marin covered the dog's ears, hoping to shield their beloved animal from the relentless howl. Joan Marin put her head in Gilbert's lap.
He held Toby close to his chest and used his other arm to pull his wife in.
Oxygen masks dispelled from the ceiling and the two scrambled to secure them, even attempting one for Toby.
The cockpit door flew open.
A flight attendant yelled, but no one heard what was said. Human wails were no match for screeching winds.
Gilbert Marin softly began to cry.
"We thought we were going to die," said Joan Marin.
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The plane's descent was an excruciating 20 minutes for those on board. But as the aircraft slumped closer to their emergency landing site back in Portland, the vicious roar slowly subsided.
Joan Marin looked out the hole. City lights flickered in the distance. The wind was just whispering now. She felt something other than debilitating fear for the first time since the boom. She felt cold.
A male flight attendant appeared from behind the couple. He moved slowly, holding an oxygen bottle to his nose with one hand and shakily grasping the tops of the seats with his other. He moved toward the plane's hole.
"Was anyone sitting in these seats," the flight attendant allegedly asked, pointing in the direction of the eerily empty seats next to what was once the plug door.
Joan Marin's heart sank. They had been told it was a full flight upon boarding.
Did they get sucked out? she worriedly asked herself.
But the row in front of her quickly chimed in. Thankfully, those seats were always empty.
"But then that made me think…They didn't know? The flight crew didn't know if anyone was sat there? They should have known!" said Joan Marin.
When they finally landed, the plane was entirely silent.
Then, thunderous applause.
Paramedics met the plane at the gate and tended to the shaken passengers.
The Marins eventually made it home to Riverside. Within hours of their arrival, they received a call from Alaska Airlines.
"We were still in shock," said Joan Marin, "We were confused, we were still dazed."
Alaska Airlines allegedly offered the couple, as well as all the other passengers on board, $1,500 each and counseling through the airline's corporate doctors.
Gilbert and Joan Marin declined the airlines' offer, and have instead sought their own mental health treatment.
"That's an insult, it's evil," said the Marins' lawyer Nick Rowley. "It's a greedy, awful, despicable thing. I'm disappointed, but I'm not surprised. That's corporate America."
In a recent statement, Alaska Airlines claimed that Boeing should pay the airline for the damages suffered.
"They're literally making money off of us," said Joan Marin. "$1,500 a person is nothing for them. $1,500 won't even cover my copay."
Directly following the incident, United States regulators grounded all Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircrafts pending further investigation. As a precaution, many other airlines followed suit.
In the weeks since that flight on Jan. 5, 2024, both Alaska and United Airlines reported discovering loose parts in the panels and door plugs of other Boeing 737 Max 9 planes. The Federal Aviation Administration temporarily grounded some Max 9 planes for inspection, as pressure on Boeing continues to mount for accountability.
In those aircraft investigations, it was discovered that Alaska Airlines decided to stop flying one of its planes over the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii, due to warnings from a cabin-pressurized system, yet neglected to keep the plane from flying over land.
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Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, said maintenance crews checked the plane and cleared it to fly — but the airline decided not to use it for the long route to Hawaii over water so that it "could return very quickly to an airport" if the warning light reappeared.
This was two days before the Marins' horrifying flight.
"Unsafe is unsafe," said Joan Marin. "That angered us. That they could even do something like that, knowing these issues."
As of Friday, Jan. 26, Boeing 737 Max 9 planes are cleared for take off.
According to Rowley, the couple decided to come forward now, after a whistleblower recently reported an "enormous volume of defects" with the Boeing 737 Max 9 planes.
Joan and Gilbert Marin say they have not been the same since the terrifying incident, and that they are being treated for possible Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. They are encouraging other passengers to speak up.
"Money runs through a corporation's veins. Money. Not blood," said Rowley. "They cared more about the money than they did the people. They knew there was a problem and they still put it in the air."
The Marins do not currently have plans to file a lawsuit against either Alaska Airlines or Boeing, but said they do want to fight for a change.
"I'd like to move on, I'd like to say this was a freak thing, and move on. But it wasn't a freak thing, they were just betting it wouldn't be," said Joan Marin. "Don't play with our lives."
This story was reported from Los Angeles.