The man whose iPhone fell out of an Alaska Airlines flight says he was sleeping when it happened: 'Next thing I know I'm like oh sh*t, there's a big hole'

• A man whose iPhone fell out of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 last week is speaking out.
• Cuong Tran told the LA Times he was sleeping when it happened, and also lost a shoe and sock.

It's not unusual for passengers to fall asleep on flights, but what happened next for Cuong Tran was decidedly out of the ordinary.

Tran is the man whose iPhone fell out of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 last week, when the plane lost a door plug during the flight, which was going from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California, on January 5. His phone was recovered on the side of a road and miraculously survived the drop of thousands of feet: It still had half of its battery's charge and was in airplane mode, opened to an email containing a baggage claim receipt.

Tran recounted his nightmare flight to The Los Angeles Times in an article published Thursday, saying his shoe and sock were pulled out of the plane along with his phone.

"I was just dozing off, my phone in hand, and then the captain messaged we were above 10,000 feet," he said. "Next thing I know, I hear this whoosh sound — really strong-sounding wind."

He continued: "I was just in disbelief, to be honest. I was like, 'What's going on here, why does everything feel so weird?' Next thing I know I'm like, 'Oh sh*t, there's a big hole.' I was just registering everything in slow motion."

Viral videos from passengers on the flight show a gaping hole in the side of the plane from where part of the fuselage seemed to pull off midflight, with gusts of wind blowing through the aircraft as passengers donned oxygen masks.

The Federal Aviation Administration has since grounded all Boeing 737 Max 9 planes with a plug door until the agency "finds each can safely return to operation."