Airline Plans Window Tests After `Incident' -- Popped Glass Nearly Cost Passenger's Life

Horizon Air plans to test the windows of all of its Fairchild Metroliner III aircraft in the next week, to avert a repeat of yesterday's incident in which a passenger nearly was sucked out of a plane during a flight from Portland to Seattle.

Special kits to test for window stress are kept at Horizon's Portland and Boise offices only, so the company's 33 Metroliner III planes will have to be cycled through those airports for the tests, said Horizon spokeswoman Nancy Hamilton.

``It was an isolated case,'' Hamilton said in explaining why the planes will not be grounded at least until they are inspected. ``Although we're not required to do anything by the FAA, we have elected to check them all out.

``The window was blown out. . . . Nothing hit the window,'' said Hamilton. ``It was a completely clean break. We're trying to determine what caused it.''

Portland resident Gale Sears, 38, a financial manager for the Oregon National Guard, was sitting in a second-row seat on the right of the aircraft when the window blew out.

His head and shoulder popped through the empty space but he was restrained by his seat belt and by the passenger sitting next to him.

He suffered minor injuries and was treated and released from Highline Community Hospital after the plane made an emergency landing at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Because no one was killed, or hospitalized for more than an hour, the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are treating the mishap as an ``incident'' rather than an ``accident.''

Debra Eckrote, NTSB air safety investigator based in Seattle, said yesterday she had looked the plane over and taken pictures to satisfy board requirements, and was awaiting records and the plane's history so she can file a report.

Officials yesterday had hoped to fly the plane to Portland for examination, but that was postponed by a representative of Fairchild Aircraft Corp. of San Antonio, Texas, who planned to travel to Seattle today to inspect the plane before it is moved, said Hamilton.

Eckrote said only the window, not its frame, was damaged. ``It was just the window glass that broke.'' She said Horizon would have to cover the window before it could fly the plane to a maintenance base.

Fairchild spokesman Bob Kennison said the window blowout was unique. ``We've never had anything like it,'' he said today. He said he had no details about the cause because the company investigator hasn't yet reported back. More than 300 planes of this model have been delivered, he said.

FAA spokeswoman Shelley McGillivary said she didn't know when the agency would consider the plane airworthy enough to fly to Portland for further tests and repairs.

John Nance, a Tacoma pilot and aviation-safety expert, said such an incident is quite unusual. ``The accident was caused either by a structural problem with the material or the installation of the window, or both,'' he said.

The aircraft's manual calls for inspection of the windows once a year. Whether Horizon's Metroliner III planes were tested within the past year or not, Hamilton said, all will be examined in the next week.

The window test uses a computerized optical device that inspects for stress.

Hamilton said the plane involved in yesterday's incident was new and had been delivered just a few months ago.

McGillivary of the FAA said the plane had 700 hours of flying time and that Horizon had never had a problem with windows in its other Metroliners. ``The plane will be investigated,'' she said. The FAA also is questioning flight crews.

The turbo-prop, carrying 18 passengers and a crew of two, lost the window at 14,000 feet over Olympia about 8:45 a.m. yesterday. It had left Portland at 8 a.m. and was due in Seattle at 8:50 a.m.

``It was an incredibly strong force. That's all I can remember,'' Sears said after being treated at Highline for shock and a few cuts.

``The noise was terrible. Everything was black. I asked myself: `What's going on? Did the airplane explode?' It was all over in five seconds. 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. I think the pressure equalized and I popped back in.''

Sears said other passengers told him his head and right shoulder had been sucked out through the window when it blew out.

After popping back into the plane, Sears 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 was buckled in his seat when the window came out, and he also received help from passenger Donald Wiens, a Horizon pilot working the flight as a ``performance checkman,'' a person who monitors a crew in flight to determine if all procedures are being followed.

Pilot Roger Callahan and co-pilot David West landed the plane with no other injuries.

Nance said the fact that Sears was wearing a seat belt was what saved him. ``If only we could get more people to realize that.''