Washington: A school teacher in the US state of Oregon found in his backyard the door panel blown out from Alaska Airlines MAX 9 airplane on Friday.
The US transport safety authority confirmed the finding, which could help with the probe into the incident, news agency AFP reported.
Following the incident, Alaska airlines grounded some of its Boeing 737 MAX 9 jets for inspections.
It comes after the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) directed to ground 171 Boeing 737 MAX 9 airplanes for inspections, Reuters reported.
Alaska Flight 1282 was gaining altitude on Friday after departing from Portland International Airport when the cabin crew reported a ‘pressurization issue’ and the flight quickly returned to Portland, said the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The chief of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reported finding of the door panel from the backyard a house in the city of Portland in Oregon.
‘I am excited to announce we have found the door plug,’ NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy was quoted as saying.
Images widely circulated on social media showed a hole where the door had been and reports said there were emergency oxygen masks hanging from the ceiling.
A door plug is a cover panel that fills an unneeded emergency exit in planes with smaller seat configurations.
The teacher, whose identify has not been revealed except the name ‘Bob’, has taken a picture of it, according to NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy.
The incident led to flight cancellations with FAA saying that it requires ‘immediate inspections of certain Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes before they can return to flight’.
The procedure as it takes four to eight hours could affect air travel worldwide, according to reports.