Door plug that flew off in terrifying Alaska Airlines flight discovered in Oregon backyard

The piece of an and opened a hole in the side of the aircraft has been discovered in a Portland, Ore. backyard. A teacher named Bob found the missing door plug on Sunday, according to . “We are really pleased that Bob found this,” she said at a . was about 16,000 feet in the air on Friday night when part of the fuselage blew out shortly after the plane’s departure from Portland International Airport.

The flight was supposed to land in Ontario, Calif. but instead quickly turned around and landed back in Portland about 35 minutes after departing. Investigators found that the missing section of the was an emergency exit door plug. It weighs an estimated 63 pounds. can have different numbers of emergency exits depending on the airline.

Some airlines pack more than 200 seats into the planes and need all the emergency exits. But other carriers, such as Alaska and United Airlines, use fewer seats and therefore don’t need all the exits to meet safety regulations. On such planes, a door plug is used instead. The aircraft that broke in mid air was .

It was deemed airworthy on Oct. 25 and received an FAA registration number on Nov. 2. But the plane had already encountered a few problems. During flights on Dec. 7, Jan. 3 and Jan. 4, an illuminated. Those flights all landed with no issues, but the plane was set for investigation, and its schedule was changed to prevent any flights over open ocean.

The door plug blew out the very next day. Following the accident, the FAA ordered 171 ..