Terror In Midair -- Window Blows; Passenger Nearly Lost

A passenger was nearly sucked out of a new Horizon Air plane 14,000 feet over Olympia this morning when a window blew out during a flight from Portland to Seattle.

The plane, a twin-engine Fairchild Metroliner III turbo-prop, landed safely at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

``It was an incredibly strong force. That's all I can remember,'' said the passenger, Gale Sears, 38, of Portland, who survived the ordeal with only minor injuries.

``The noise was terrible. Everything was black. I asked myself: `What's going on? Did the airplane explode?' ,'' Sears said at Highline Community Hospital, where he was treated and released.

``It was all over in five seconds,'' said Sears. ``Suddenly, I was fighting this force. I don't know if I was outside the plane. I tried once, I tried twice to get back.''

Sears, who was buckled into his seat, doubts he overcame the force. ``I think the pressure equalized and I popped back in.

``I was still in my seat, but I lay across the lap of the gentleman next to me. He just held me, he held me.''

Sears looked at the window opening - about 10 by 14 inches - and couldn't believe what other passengers told him: that his head and right shoulder had been sucked out through the window when it broke.

``That's what they tell me happened. I don't know, myself,'' Sears said.

After popping back into the plane, he wondered if he was bleeding. ``It was raining out there and when I came back in, I was all wet. I thought it was blood,'' Sears said.

For the next 15 minutes, he simply leaned back in his seat and waited for the damaged airliner to land at Sea-Tac.

Sears recalls telling himself at the time, ``OK. I'm going to be OK.''

Later, a man traveling with Sears passed him a note scribbled on his ticket folder. It said: ``Gale - you should get first-class.''

When the plane landed, Sears was met by a fire department aid-car crew and officials of Horizon Airline.

Sears was given an extensive medical examination at the hospital, including X-rays of his neck and upper back.

``The doctor said there were no chipped or broken bones,'' Sears said. ``I'm a little stiff now, and the doctor said if I'm sore now, I'm really going to be sore tomorrow.'' His only injuries were puncture wounds on his hands and a stiff neck. The puncture wounds were caused by the shattered window.

Sears, financial manager for the Oregon National Guard, was on his way to a National Guard meeting in Harrisburg, Pa..

It wasn't known what caused the window to blow out of the plane, which was carrying 18 passengers and two crew members. Pilot Roger Callahan and co-pilot David West landed the plane at Sea-Tac at 8:50 this morning, said Horizon Air spokeswoman Nancy Hamilton.

Sears was seated next to the window in the second row on the right side of the plane when the window popped out, Hamilton said.

Sears said that about 10 minutes after leaving Portland, he heard a series of sharp ``whack'' sounds on the outside of the plane. No other passengers or Horizon Airline crew members indicated they heard the sound or, if they did, they were not concerned about it.

Sears estimates there were maybe 10 sounds ``like somebody with a 1-inch dowel whacking the outside of the plane.''

Hamilton explained that when the window blew out, another Horizon pilot was in the passenger area of the plane and he ``was of assistance'' to Sears when the window blew out.

The pilot was on the plane as a ``performance air checkman,'' an employee who monitors the crew to determine if all procedures are being followed.

``It's ironic the pilot happened to be on that plane,'' said Hamilton.

Aircraft such as the Metroliner are pressurized for flight at high altitudes, and that difference in pressure between the air inside the cabin and the air outside can cause rapid decompression if there is a structural failure. As the pressure equalizes, objects in the cabin can be sucked out.

``The window was blown out. . . . Nothing hit the window,'' said Hamilton. ``It was a completely clean break. As far as we know, it's an isolated incident. We're trying to determine what caused it. We're going to check all of the windows on the aircraft.''

The plane involved was new, and Horizon plans to check the windows of all of its 33 Fairchild Metro III planes, Hamilton said.

Flight 2300, which left Portland at 8 a.m., was scheduled to arrive in Seattle at 8:50 a.m. The flight was full.

The window blew at 8:45, and ``the crew then did an emergency descent according to emergency procedures and passengers were given oxygen,'' Hamilton said. Emergency vehicles were waiting to help as the plane landed.

The incident canceled Sears' one-day trip, and he was to return home on a Horizon flight today.

Horizon Air has been using Fairchild Metro III planes for eight years. Horizon Air operates flights between Portland and Seattle every half hour.

A secretary at Fairchild Aircraft Corp. in San Antonio, Texas, said the company hadn't been notified about the accident and had no information.

The Federal Aviation Administration sent investigators to Sea-Tac right after the plane landed, said Mitch Barker, FAA spokesman.

He said cases of windows blowing out of airplanes are infrequent. He said he heard no report of difficulty controlling the plane after the incident.

The National Transportation Safety Board office in Seattle said an investigator was sent to the airport to investigate the incident.

-- Times staff reporters Dave Birkland, Polly Lane and Peyton Whitely contributed to this report.

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INCIDENT ON HORIZON AIR FLIGHT 2300

At 8:45 a.m. flying at 14,000 feet over Olympia, the plane's second window on the right side blew out, and the nearest passenger of 18 aboard was nearly pulled out.

Fairchild Metroliner III

Horizon operates 33 Metroliners. The plane in today's incident was only a few months old.

-- Passengers: 19-20

-- Crew: 2

-- Wing span: 57 feet

-- Cruising speed: 320 mph

-- Engines: Two Garrett turboprops