Three individuals on board the tragic flight that departed from Portland, Oregon, on January 5 and had a cabin panel rupture are suing Alaska Airlines and the airplane manufacturing behemoth Boeing for $1 billion.
Pictures of the severely large hole in the fuselage went viral, and the passengers who were suing shared even more horrific accounts of what happened, including one in which a teenager's clothing was almost sucked out.
'Jeopardizing Lives'
In an interview with KGW News, passenger Kyle Rinker recounted the incident, "We took off fine and then just five minutes, and we heard the loud pop," referring to the 737 MAX 9 plane's door plug blowing off, which caused a hole to appear.
"The wind just came rushing it. It was very, very cold all of the sudden, obviously, because you're flying up there at 16,000 feet," Rinker added.
On behalf of the passengers on Alaskan Airlines Flight 1282, Rinker, his girlfriend Amanda Strickland, and another passenger, Kevin Kwok, filed the case in Multnomah County, Oregon, at the end of last month, according to The New York Post.
Rinker and Strickland were seated two seats behind Jack, a fifteen-year-old who had his shirt ripped off in the incident.
The lawsuit claims that the aircraft should never have taken off and that the defendants disregarded clear warning signals.
Plaintiffs' lawyer Jonathan Johnson stated, "This is mostly about the systemic problems at Boeing, which is jeopardizing the lives of the entire traveling public who travel on Boeing aircraft... They should not be trusting luck to avoid a planeload of people being killed."
Johnson said that the aircraft manufacturer would be forced to prioritize safety due to the litigation, even though they have admitted fault and promised to prevent such incidents in the future.
Another Legal Dispute
This complaint by Rinker, Strickland, and Kwok is only the most recent legal dispute against Alaska and Boeing since the event in January.
Last month, Mark Lindquist, another attorney representing 22 additional individuals on Flight 1282, told Fox News that their lawsuit against Boeing and Alaska Airlines had been broadened to encompass the claim that people on a previous flight of the plane heard a whistling noise.
During an earlier flight of the jet in question, previous passengers noticed a whistling noise near the door plug. According to reports, flight attendants alerted the pilot or first officer after passengers pointed it out. However, there was apparently no more action taken when the pilot examined the cockpit instruments, which were found to be normal.
