Alaska 1282 was a 2 hour, 17 minute flight from Portland (KPDX) to Ontario, CA (KONT), departing at 4:40 pm, flying a new 737 MAX-9 aircraft (tail number N704AL) delivered in November 2023 (
https://www.flightaware.com/resources/registration/N704AL). After reaching 16,000 FASL it experienced a rapid decompression, possibly due to an exit plug failure. Fortunately, nobody was seated next to the fuselage at that location, and the flight safely returned to PDX using runway 28L.
Some of the audio from the final part of the arrival from ASA1282 seems to be missing (or at least I was unable to hear the conversations between ASA1282 and PDX Ground or PDX Final, but you can hear PDX Ground advising other aircraft about their emergency landing on 28L).
Flight Aware map:
The audio follows ASA1282's radio communications: Seattle Center (Portland Area), PDX South Approach (118.100), PDX Tower (123.775), and PDX Ground (121.900).
I was just idly browsing Reddit's r/aviation waiting for my own KSEA-KSAN flight to finish boarding when I first caught this.
https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/18znz5p/as_1282_kpdx_to_kont_diverted_for_rapid/Edit to add: Alaska CEO Ben Minicucci has just announced that they are grounding their 737 MAX-9 fleet for now:
https://news.alaskaair.com/alaska-airlines/operations/as-1282/
