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An Alaska Airlines flight making its way from Southern California to Seattle made an emergency landing in San Jose on Wednesday morning after initially reporting "catastrophic electrical failure with cabin depressurization," according to the FAA and local fire officials.
The San Jose Fire Department rushed crews to Mineta San Jose International Airport. The Boeing 737 landed safely with no injuries.
Fire dispatchers received a 911 call from the airport tower at 7:24 a.m. that Alaska Airlines Flight 539 heading to Seattle had lost cabin pressure and was experiencing "catastrophic electrical failure," according to San Jose Fire Capt. Mary Gutierrez.
The aircraft, which departed from Ontario airport at 6:28 a.m., landed safely at 7:42 a.m. It was later reported the aircraft had experienced "minor electrical issues," but did lose cabin pressure, Gutierrez said.
In an e-mail, Alaska Airlines spokesperson Bobbie Egan said the flight began experiencing several electrical issues as it was climbing to its cruising altitude. The crew also had to manually pressurize the cabin.
The flight descended to 10,000 feet and diverted to San Jose, Egan said.
Because of the nature of the call, the fire department response included six ambulances and a trailer capable of dealing with mass casualties, Gutierrez said.
The fire department holds yearly training for potential airport disasters; in March, first responders did a full scale
exercise for a plane crash at the San Jose airport.
The airplane has been taken out of service while maintenance technicians determine the cause and make repairs, according to Egan.
The 131 passengers on board were re-accommodated on various flights out of Oakland and San Francisco, Egan said. A larger aircraft was being substituted for the noon flight from San Jose to Seattle to accommodate other passengers.
"Had to manually pressurize the plane" - so, it was simply a failure of the automatic pressurization controls?