Woman who says she was on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 that blew out a door midair said she was afraid the plane would 'nosedive at any second'

• The FAA grounded 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 planes after an Alaska Airlines flight lost a door in the air.
• A woman on board the flight said she was afraid the plane would "nosedive at any second."

One woman who says she was on board Alaska Airlines flight 1282 that had a chunk ripped from the plane in midair said she was afraid the plane would "nosedive at any second" after the door dislodged.

A woman who only identified herself as Courtney on Instagram and TikTok posted a video detailing the terrifying incident, which she said was like something out of the movies. She did not immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider on Sunday.

In a separate TikTok video, Courtney shared photos from her Instagram story showing her sitting in the plane before takeoff.

Courtney says she was seated near the front of the plane — in front of the door that dislodged — when the door broke away at around 16,000 feet altitude on Friday afternoon, she said in the video.

"We weren't at cruising altitude yet," she said in the video. "We were all still in full takeoff mode. Seat belts on, kind of like, focused. No one was trying to get up or anything, thank goodness."

National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said in a news conference on Saturday that the passengers were "fortunate" that the plane had not reached cruising altitude when the door broke away. Homendy said the incident could have been "much more tragic" if people had been walking the aisles of the plane.

Courtney said she heard a "really loud bang" and felt a "jolt and woosh of air" from the back of the plane about 10 minutes after take off. Oxygen masks immediately descended from the overhead compartments, she said.

"We had no idea what had happened yet," she said. "My mind is still thinking 'maybe this is a joke,' but my body is like 'put that over my head, tighten the straps, look around for children, and see if anybody needs help.'"

As commotion started to build behind her, Courtney said she and other passengers tried to look to the back of the plane to see what was happening but couldn't see the hole in the plane through the cords from the hanging oxygen masks.

She said she was grateful not to be in the back of the plane, where several people had their phones and other belonging "sucked out of their hands," but that being in the front was almost worse because of the fear of not knowing what had caused the emergency.

"I truly thought it was the engine," she said in the video. "I thought an engine had blown out — a wing had gone down — like that's how loud and like jolting that second was. I thought we were going to nose-dive that any second."

The time that it took the plane to descend back to the Portland airport felt like a lifetime because she couldn't shake the thought of what her family would do without her if the plane were to crash, she said. The pilots never came over the intercom to inform the passengers of what was happening, but Courtney said this was reassuring to her because they were "focusing on their job."

When the plane finally did successfully land at the airport, she said the passengers erupted with applause.

"Only time I'm okay with people clapping at the end of a flight," she said.

Courtney said she still "can't believe this even happened" and that the ordeal has been emotionally taxing, causing her not to sleep for more than 24 hours before she posted the video.

Homendy noted on Saturday that this was a "pretty terrifying event" for those on board, adding that "we don't often talk about psychological injury, but I'm sure that occurred here."

The Federal Aviation Administration ordered the grounding of 171 Boeing 737 Max 9 planes after the incident. The planes will be unable to fly in United States airspace until the undergo inspections, which will take about eight hours each to complete, the agency said in a statement.

The NTSB is conducting an investigation into the break on flight 1282, led by lead investigator John Lovell, Homendy said.