Alaska

Alaska Airlines Incident Exposes Another Scary Vulnerability

Published

2 years ago

January 10, 2024

Alaska Airlines Incident Exposes Another Scary Vulnerability

Following the September 11, 2001, attacks, aircraft manufacturers and federal regulators worked together to secure airplane cockpits so bad actors would not be able to gain access to the controls. An exception was put in place, however, for the rare case of a rapid depressurization; in that case, it was determined, the risk of a hijacker trying to access the cockpit would be low enough that the cockpit doors should automatically open so air could flow between the cockpit and the cabin. But the flight crew aboard the Boeing 737 MAX 9 being operated by Alaska Airlines Friday when a gaping hole opened up in the side of the plane didn’t know that would happen, and was surprised when the cockpit door flew open amid the chaos inside the cabin, the Wall Street Journal reports.

National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy explained at a press conference Tuesday, per Politico, “The cockpit doors flew open immediately and at this point the flight attendant in the forward portion of the aircraft was standing. The cockpit door flew open, hit the lavatory door. The lavatory door got stuck. She did attempt to shut the door three times, it eventually shut.” The fact that the cockpit door would open in such an event was not mentioned in the Boeing manual for the plane, per the WSJ, and experts in the fields of aviation safety and regulation who spoke to the paper say even they didn’t know about the feature, which they view as a potential security issue, especially now that it’s been exposed.

“They’ll have to go back and revisit the whole security piece of this,” a former regional director of the Transportation Security Administration says. “Once you put it out in the public domain and the bad guys now know that’s a potential area they can exploit, then I think you have to take some additional steps.” Meanwhile, the fact that the information was not in the manual echoed pilot criticisms of a lack of training regarding flight control systems on Boeing’s 737 MAX 8 that were implicated in two deadly crashes. “It’s another round of Boeing not telling pilots about an airplane detail, which erodes the trust relationship and more importantly it narrows the safety margin,” says a rep for a pilots’ union. Also Tuesday, Boeing’s CEO acknowledged the company’s “mistake” in the Alaska Airlines incident, per CNN, though where that mistake took place is not yet clear. (Read more Boeing stories.)

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Alaska

Watch My Buddy Matt Not Get Eaten by Bears in Alaska

Published

1 hour ago

July 10, 2026

Press Room

Watch My Buddy Matt Not Get Eaten by Bears in Alaska

I’m typically pretty wordy. But just watch the video.

Disclaimer: Matt Addington is a professional. These bears grazed toward him from 100 yards away while he held tight. Do not try this ever, under any circumstances, or you will likely spend the rest of your time on this earth as bear poop.

Matt Addington is an incredible professional photographer, and I can say that from personal experience. He’s captured images of me in rough shape and somehow made them stunnin’. The Minnesota-based photographer and filmmaker has built a career telling outdoor stories, and his latest bear video proves he knows exactly where to point a camera.

Places like Katmai National Park in Alaska (where this video was taken) can offer unusually close encounters with brown bears, thanks in part to abundant food and tightly managed visitor access. That doesn’t make encounters like this casual or safe to imitate.

Addington is an extremely experienced outdoorsman, and he was photographing with professional guides Scott and Jackie Stone. For people hoping to photograph bears this way, a guided wildlife photography tour is one of the safest ways to do it. Do not try this in Yellowstone or your local national forest.

The bears were grazing nearly 100 yards away when the group set up. They stayed put as the animals continued feeding and gradually moved closer, resulting in some incredible footage and a once-in-a-lifetime photo.

I can only hope he wore his brown pants under his waders.

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Alaska

Black bear breaks into Alaskan mall, eats a peach and relieves itself on floor before leaving: video

Published

12 hours ago

July 10, 2026

Press Room

Black bear breaks into Alaskan mall, eats a peach and relieves itself on floor before leaving: video

Can bearly believe it!

A black bear was caught on camera seemingly running errands at a local shopping mall in Anchorage, Alaska over the weekend.

The bear entered the commissary mall at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson around 9 a.m. Sunday, KTUU reported, citing a JBER spokesperson.

Wild footage shows the young cub strolling through the commissary’s automatic doors and exploring all that the mall had to offer.

The hungry bear stole and ate a piece of fruit before emptying its bowels on the hallway floor on its way out of the building.

Kory Godbout, who works at the barber shop on the military base, was waiting for his first customer of the day when he spotted the furry intruder traveling through the automatic doors.

“My coworker, who is cutting hair in front of me, she yelled, ‘Bear!’” Godbout recalled.

“And I looked up from my phone and the bear was walking into the barber shop right in front of me,” the barber said. “And we all ran into the break room and shut the door behind us.”

After a few minutes, Godbout and his coworkers emerged from the break room and followed the out-of-place bear into the commissary, where it took a peach from the grocery store and ate it.

The barber recalled that a few onlookers were “going big to try and scare” the bear out of the grocery store.

But all of a sudden, the black bear returned to the barber shop.

“By that time, we were able to run back to the shop and then lock the door,” Godbout said.

“And then we were watching him from the window and then that’s when he decided to, you know, use the restroom in the hallway.”

Officers from Conservation Law Enforcement attended the peculiar grizzly scene and were able to direct the wild animal towards a river and into the woods, according to the JBER spokesperson.

JBER’s wildlife program manager Colette Brandt said in a press release that the bear had triggered the automatic doors and that Sunday’s events were entirely incidental, KTUU reported.

While there has been a decline in bear-related calls since the military base installed bear-resistant dumpsters, seven bears have been put down at JBER for public safety over the past year.

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Alaska

Fatal crash closes Glenn Highway southbound lanes near Eagle River

Published

22 hours ago

July 9, 2026

Press Room

Fatal crash closes Glenn Highway southbound lanes near Eagle River

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – The southbound lanes of the Glenn Highway were closed Thursday morning near the S-curves due to a fatal crash, according to the Anchorage Police Department.

Police confirmed shortly after 11 a.m. that at least one person was dead. As of 12:45 p.m., one southbound lane is now open to traffic.

The southbound lanes of the Glenn Highway were closed July 9, 2026 near the S-curves due to a fatal crash, according to the Anchorage Police Department.(Alaska’s News Source)

An Alaska’s News Source reporter on the scene said the crash took place near the Eagle River Loop Road. Video from the scene shows multiple vehicles took damage in the incident.

This is a developing story. It has been updated with new information.

See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com

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