Boeing, Alaska Airlines settle $1B lawsuit with passengers after door plug blowout
Jul 16, 2025, 11:51 AM
Sunday marks one year since an Alaska Airlines flight from Portland was forced to make an emergency landing after a door plug blew out mid-flight. (Photo: Sam Matthews, The Associated Press)
(Photo: Sam Matthews, The Associated Press)
Boeing and Alaska Airlines have settled a lawsuit out of court with several passengers aboard the plane that suffered a door plug blowout.
The passengers in the lawsuit were seeking $1 billion in damages following the incident, but decided to settle out of court with both Boeing and Alaska Airlines. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
The blowout aboard Alaska Airlines flight 1282 in January 2024 occurred minutes after it took off from Portland, Oregon, and created a roaring air vacuum that sucked objects out of the cabin and scattered them on the ground below, along with debris from the fuselage. Seven passengers and one flight attendant sustained minor injuries, but no one was killed. Pilots were able to land the plane safely back at the airport.
In response, Alaska Airlines grounded more than 60 Max 9s out of service for safety inspections after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered certain Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes to be removed from service for immediate inspections.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) blamed Boeing for the incident, asserting that inadequate training, guidance, and oversight at Boeing led to last year’s door plug blowout.
NTSB Chairman Jennifer Homendy called the mid-air scare “preventable,” caused by a chain of systemic failures that could have been deadly.
“I firmly believe there’s one reason flight 1282 averted catastrophe, and one reason only — the crew,” she said.
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