Hole in plane forces emergency landing

A US jet was forced to make an emergency landing after horrified passengers discovered a hole in the plane's fuselage.

The football-sized hole appeared during a Southwest Airlines flight from Nashville to Baltimore on Monday, prompting the cabin to depressurise and forcing the plane to land.

"All 126 passengers and crew of five onboard landed safely," the firm said in a statement.

"The aircraft cabin depressurised approximately 30 minutes into the flight, activating the passengers' onboard oxygen masks throughout the cabin.

"According to initial crew reports, the depressurisation appears to be related to a small-sized hole located approximately mid-cabin, near the top of the aircraft."

Charleston Airport spokesman Brian Belcher said passengers on the 737 aircraft could see the outside through the hole in the rear of the plane.

The hole was position just above passenger Michael Cunningham, who had been sleeping in seat 20-C.

"All of a sudden, the loudest noise I ever heard came out of nowhere. There was no pop, no creak, no explosion like noise. There was just a loud roar," said Mr Cunningham.

He said it took him a few seconds to realise what had happened after the noise woke him up.

"I got the baseball cap out of my face and I looked up and there's the sun coming through the ceiling," he said.

The loss of cabin pressure caused the oxygen masks to deploy. Mr Cunningham said some people weren't sure if they were working.

"They were asking me is it working, is the bag inflating? And I was like, if you can feel your fingers and you're conscious by this point, the bag's working," he said.

The airline said it would inspect all its 737-300s.

Southwest Airlines Hole In Plane

CHARLESTON, W. Va. - Federal safety officials are investigating how a foot-long hole opened in the top of a Southwest Airlines jet, forcing the aircraft to make an emergency landing in Charleston, W. Va.

The Boeing 737 jet lost pressure in the cabin, but no one was injured on Monday's Nashville-to-Baltimore flight that carried 126 passengers and five crew members.

Southwest said Tuesday that it inspected all 181 of its identical Boeing 737-300-series jets overnight before putting them back in the sky.

Passenger Michael Cunningham told NBC's "Today" show Tuesday that he had dozed off in his seat in mid-cabin when he was awakened by "the loudest roar I'd ever heard," and saw the hole above his seat.

Cunningham said people stayed calm and put on oxygen masks that dropped from the ceiling.

"After we landed in Charleston, the pilot came out and looked up through the hole, and everybody applauded, shook his hand, a couple of people gave him hugs," he said.

Southwest said it was unclear what caused the hole, which ripped open just in front of the vertical tail fin as the plane cruised at 30,000 feet. The jet flew that way for nearly half an hour to Charleston.

The National Transportation Safety Board sent an investigator to the scene to interview the crew and examine maintenance and inspection records, but could take months to find a cause, said agency spokesman Keith Holloway.

The incident occurred just four months after Southwest agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle charges that it operated planes that had missed required safety inspections for cracks in the fuselage.

Southwest spokeswoman Marilee McInnis said the airline inspected its Boeing 737-300-series jets overnight at hangars around the country and discovered no cracks in any of the others.

"It was a walk-around visual inspection just to check for structural integrity," McInnis said.

The 137-seat 737-300 makes up about one-third of Southwest's fleet. All its 544 jets are various models of the Boeing 737.

No cancellations, delays
The planes that were inspected overnight were put back into routine service Tuesday morning, while the airliner that landed in West Virginia stayed there. Representatives from aircraft manufacturer Boeing were helping to determine cause of the hole, McInnis said.

Southwest operated a normal schedule of flights — about 3,300 per day — with no cancelations or delays through midday, McInnis said.

The hobbled airliner was placed in service during the 1990s and went through "routine maintenance" this month, McInnis said.

Experts said the tear could have been caused by damage from a dent or ding, or the plane's skin could have suffered from age-related fatigue. Jet cabins are pressurized and depressurized with every flight, which can cause tiny cracks over time. The Southwest jet was built in 1994.

Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Va., said a finding of fatigue would be more frightening. If that were the cause, it could force the FAA to consider more rigorous inspections for older aircraft, he said.