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. It is an official accident with lead investigator John Lovell (NTSB investigator in MAX crash in Ethiopia) leading the investigation. She said they have a general location based on primary radar for the door. Aircraft delivered to Alaska on November 11, 2023. Row 25 and 26 seats A missing headrests. On 26A, the back of the seat is missing. Clothing items in the area. Stops on door frame still intact. Door is not an emergency exit but can be opened for inspection.
PureVidaTransport made an interesting point about the low probability 26A and 26B would be empty. (Apologies if others have commented on this but I'm not finding it by search.)
Choosing to ignore other factors, there is randomly > 95% probability that 26A would NOT be empty, and > 99% probability that 26A and 26B would BOTH not be empty. In a root cause investigation, probabilities above 95% are usually considered significant.
Putting this together with the 3 prior auto-pressurization events I expect they will look closely to see if the seats were de-prioritized/blocked (at least 26A) due to intermittent noise, and my speculation is they are, and they are related.
It is possible the cause of the auto-pressurization warning was transient during certain flight phases, therefore when switched to ALT things looked fine. Uncomfortable noise may have also occurred transiently, again depending on flight phase. There is more insulation covering the plug than there would be covering a normal exposed door, but apparently air leaks are very loud.
Main point is it is
extremely unlikely the empty seats were randomly empty.
(If you are going to reply that 2 people reserved the seats and missed the connection, please include a source.)