Originally Posted by
PuraVidaTransport
According to the NTSB briefing tonight, there were only SEVEN (7) empty seats so just 4%. Alaska had 178 seats on the aircraft and the spokesman said there were 171 passengers.
The whole discussion here reminds one of the old joke : "When is a door not a door ..."
The fortuitous chance of the adjacent seats not being occupied may be linked to this particular flight, in previous days, always being operated by a lesser capacity 737-MAX8, which is presumably the scheduled type. Accounts describe this particular airframe having been removed from ETOPS usage by Alaska (principally their routes to Hawaii) due to outstanding pressurisation issues, but was still felt capable of internal US flights. One imagines this latter decision by Alaska will come under some review.
It will be interesting to track down passengers seated there on immediately previous flights, and ask them if there was any excessive noise from the cabin wall, given that it was losing sufficient pressurisation to be noticed. Then ask the flight attendants what was reported about that.