Summary
- A recent Alaska Airlines flight was cancelled and postponed due to a maintenance issue on the aircraft.
- The pilot of the aircraft claimed that a door had allegedly opened during a previous flight, which had led to necessary repairs.
- Since the incident, the plane has been diverted twice more, but Alaska has not released details about the plane’s maintenance issues.
About 100 Alaska Airlines passengers were stranded in Fresno, California, last week after a Boeing 737-900ER was unable to operate a flight to Seattle due to “a standard maintenance problem.” The affected and understandably frustrated travelers had to wait almost 24 hours until the plane was repaired.
One of the passengers claimed the pilot claimed the plane was unserviceable because a door burst open twice on the outbound flight to Fresno. Alaska has claimed the problem had nothing to do with the plane’s doors, but flight data suggests there have been other problems since the incident.
Delayed… then cancelled
According to FlightAware, AS1051 was scheduled to fly from Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT) to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) on Thursday. The flight was originally scheduled to depart at 4:45 p.m., but was delayed by nearly four hours to 8:00 p.m. and subsequently canceled.
Photo: Raleigh-Durham International Airport
According to local FOX affiliate station KMPH in Fresno, Lynn Whitesides and Jaime Holt were among the passengers booked on the flight. They were notified every 30 to 45 minutes about their flight’s delay before it was canceled. Holt said an employee in Alaska informed her that the flight would be rescheduled for Friday because a replacement aircraft was needed.
“Sorry, your flight was canceled, but I heard we’re sending a new plane. There will be a plane ready to take off at 9:00 on Friday morning to take all of you, probably close to 100 people who were here last night, to Seattle.”
“Given Alaska’s history with things flying out of airplanes”
However, when they returned to the FAT on Friday morning, no replacement aircraft was available and the original plane was still not ready to fly. Holt mentioned that the airline said it was still waiting for a spare part to repair the 737. Around noon, one of the pilots gave the stranded passengers an update.
According to Whitesides, the pilot announced over the intercom in the terminal that there were complications during the flight back from SEA on Thursday. The pilot reportedly said a door flew open twice during the flight. Whitesides further mentioned that the pilot stated that they wanted to make sure the problem was fixed, given the airline’s unfortunate history.
“…given Alaska’s history of things flying out of airplanes, they wanted to make sure that didn’t happen and was properly addressed before we left Fresno for Seattle again.”
Simple Flying contacted Alaska about the incident and the airline said Monday that the plane’s maintenance issue had nothing to do with its doors.
“This was a standard aircraft maintenance issue at FAT, and finding the right replacement part required a little more time,” a spokesman said on Monday. “It had nothing to do with the doors on the plane.”
Photo: Joe Kunzler | Easy flying
Flight data shows that the aircraft is registered as N237AK. According to ch-aviation, it is an eight-year-old 737-900ER. The aircraft was subsequently repaired and finally flew to SEA on Friday as AS9201, arriving there at around 3:00 p.m. If there were indeed problems with the doors, it was probably the cockpit or lavatory doors – a cockpit door left ajar during flight is a major safety risk. External door problems would likely mean that the aircraft would have to remain on the ground for much longer.
Whitesides said they were grateful that Alaska had made repairing the plane a priority, but said the airline should have had alternative plans in place.
“We are very happy that they made the delays to repair our aircraft so that we were not flying unsafely, but there should be backup plans in place to prevent this from happening and causing any unnecessary stress to passengers.”
Further complications with the aircraft
N237AK then flew as usual on Friday with a stopover in Salt Lake City. On Saturday, the aircraft flew to Phoenix and was then scheduled to fly to Portland as AS751. However, flight data shows that for an unknown reason, the aircraft flew to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) instead. It remained at LAX for the rest of the day.
On Sunday, the plane flew from LAX to SEA as AS1219 but was diverted. It took off at 11:24 a.m. and reached an altitude of 25,000 feet about 15 minutes later. The plane then turned around and began to descend. It landed back at LAX at 12:11 p.m. and will remain out of service until Wednesday, according to FlightAware.
Alaska declined to respond to Simple Flying’s request for comment on the status of the aircraft or the reasons for the diversions to LAX on Saturday and Sunday.
