At the time of the incident the aircraft was still climbing altitude, most of the passengers were still buckled down, it could have been much worse if it happened at cruise height after the seatbelt lights turned off. Years ago my sister told me her friend's tribulation during a fly. The plane was hit by violent turbulence, some passengers were tossed into the air or ceiling? maybe? One with broken leg and many other injuries. After landed in Beijing several badly injured people were taken by stretchers.
Since then I always had myself seatbelted along the whole path except for washroom.
TThe loud “boom” was startling enough, and the roaring wind that immediately filled the airline cabin left Kelly Bartlett unnerved. Still, it wasn’t until a shaken teenager, shirtless and scratched, slid into the seat next to her that she realized just how close disaster had come.
A section of the Boeing 737 Max 9’s fuselage just three rows away had blown out – at three miles high – creating a vacuum that twisted the metal of the seats nearby, and snatched cellphones, headsets and even the shirt off the teenager’s back.
“His shirt got sucked off of his body when the panel blew out because of the pressure, and it was his seatbelt that kept him in his seat and saved his life. And there he was next to me,” she said, adding that his mother was reseated elsewhere.
“We had our masks on, and the plane was really loud so we couldn’t talk. But I had a … notes app on my phone that I was typing on. So I typed to him and I asked him if he was hurt,” Bartlett said. “I just couldn’t believe he was sitting there and what he must have gone through, what he must have been feeling at the time.”
She said the boy typed back that he was OK, but a bit scratched, adding “that was unbelievable” and “thank you for your kindness.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/09/alaska-airlines-boeing-737-max-9-blowout
