An Alaska Airways flight made an emergency touchdown at Portland Worldwide Airport in Oregon on Friday night after experiencing what the federal authorities described as a midair stress downside that passengers mentioned blew out a piece of the fuselage.

The airline mentioned that Alaska Airways Flight 1282 had made a protected emergency touchdown carrying 171 passengers and 6 crew members after returning to the Portland airport shortly after takeoff for Ontario, Calif. The crew reported a “pressurization situation” earlier than touchdown, the Federal Aviation Administration mentioned in a separate assertion.

A passenger, Vi Nguyen of Portland, mentioned that she woke as much as a loud sound in the course of the flight. Then she noticed a big gap within the facet of the plane.

“I open up my eyes and the very first thing I see is the oxygen masks proper in entrance of me,” Ms. Nguyen, 22, mentioned. “And I look to the left and the wall on the facet of the airplane is gone.”

“The very first thing I assumed was, ‘I’m going to die,’” she added.

Her buddy, Elizabeth Le, 20, mentioned she had additionally heard “an especially loud pop.” When she seemed up, she noticed a gaping gap on the wall of the airplane about two or three rows away, she mentioned.

Ms. Le mentioned nobody was sitting within the window seat subsequent to the lacking fuselage however {that a} teenage boy and his mom have been sitting within the center and aisle seats. Flight attendants helped them transfer to the opposite facet of the airplane a couple of minutes later, she mentioned. The boy appeared to have misplaced his shirt by some means, and his pores and skin seemed purple and irritated, she added.

“It was actually horrifying, I virtually broke down, however I spotted I wanted to stay calm,” she mentioned.

There have been bulletins over the speaker system however none have been audible as a result of the wind whipping via the airplane was so loud, she mentioned. After the airplane landed, paramedics got here on board to ask whether or not anybody was injured, she added. A person seated within the row instantly behind the outlet mentioned that he had harm his foot.

Ms. Le mentioned the passengers weren’t given an evidence of what had occurred. In a video she took of the flight, passengers will be heard clapping after touchdown. “Oh, my god,” somebody says.

The airplane was a Boeing 737 Max 9, in line with FlightAware, a flight monitoring web site. The airline, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Nationwide Transportation Security Board mentioned that they have been investigating what had occurred.

Ms. Nguyen, who was touring along with her buddies, mentioned that after touchdown they’d been instructed they might board one other flight to Ontario later that evening.

Alaska Airways Flight 1282 departed for Ontario Worldwide Airport at 5:07 p.m., in line with FlightAware, and was diverted again to Portland six minutes later. It reached a most altitude of about 16,000 toes, when its pace was recorded at greater than 440 miles per hour, and landed in Portland at 5:27 p.m.

Boeing mentioned in a press release that it was “conscious of the incident involving Alaska Airways Flight 1282,” including: “We’re working to collect extra data and are in touch with our airline buyer.”

The 737 Max has been scrutinized by the authorities in recent times. In December, Boeing urged airways to examine all 737 Max airplanes for a attainable free bolt within the rudder-control system after a global airline found a bolt with a lacking nut throughout routine upkeep. Alaska Airways mentioned on the time that it anticipated to finish inspections for its fleet within the first half of January.

That was one other improvement in what has been a troubled historical past for the airplane, a single-aisle workhorse plane that was designed for brief and intermediate distances.

In 2018, Lion Air Flight 610 crashed into the ocean off the coast of Indonesia, killing all 189 passengers and crew members. Lower than 5 months later in 2019, Ethiopian Airways Flight 302 crashed shortly after leaving Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, killing all 157 folks on board.

The 2 crashes prompted regulators all over the world to floor the Max. Boeing made adjustments to the airplane, together with to the flight management system behind the crashes, and the Federal Aviation Administration cleared it to fly once more in late 2020. In 2021, the corporate agreed to a $2.5 billion settlement with the Justice Division, resolving a legal cost that Boeing conspired to defraud the F.A.A.

Mark Walker contributed reporting.