A pilot on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 speaks for the first time about the Terrible moments when a door panel flew out of the Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft in mid-flight in January.

“The first sign was an explosion in my ears and then a whooshing sound of air,” First Officer Emily Wiprud said in an exclusive interview with CBS News. “My body was thrown forward and there was also a loud bang. … The door to the flight deck was open. I saw hoses hanging out of the cabin.”

Wiprud said she didn’t know what was going on at the time. Instinct took over and she and the captain began working on a safe landing.

“I didn’t know there was a hole in the plane until we landed,” Wiprud said. “I knew something had gone catastrophically wrong.”

“It was so incredibly loud,” she recalls. “And I remember putting on the oxygen mask and trying to communicate with air traffic control and wondering, ‘Why can’t I hear anything?'”

It turned out that her headset had been ripped off. Several items, including the Telephones of two passengersWiprud’s headset and several aircraft components were sucked out of the plane.

The panel, also known as a door plug, is designed to fit into door openings not normally needed on an airplane, turning them into windows. The Alaska Airlines plane had been flying between Portland, Oregon and Ontario, California for about six minutes when the panel blew out at 16,000 feet. The crew was forced to make an emergency landing.

Next, Wiprud focused on identifying the 171 passengers and four flight attendants on board the plane.

“I opened the cockpit door and saw calm, silence, hundreds of eyes staring at me,” she said. She asked flight attendants if everything was OK, and crew members told her there were “empty seats and injured people” among the passengers.

Wiprud said when she heard there were empty seats, she thought they had lost passengers.

Fortunately, no passengers were sucked out of the plane, but a teenager on board the flight his shirt was torn from his bodyWhile Wiprud was checking with the flight attendants, she saw the teenager’s mother searching for him on the ground.

“She looked back and her son was gone. As a mother, I can’t even imagine that feeling,” said Wiprud, who has two young children. It turned out that the teenager, who had been sitting in the same row where the disguise had been blown out, had quickly moved to another seat.

Ultimately, the plane landed safely and the reported injuries were found to be minor.

Wiprud spoke to CBS News along with Captain Jason Ambrosi, president of the Air Line Pilots Association. Ambrosi said, “The most important safety feature of any aircraft is two well-trained, qualified and rested pilots. … This crew instinctively implemented their training and just performed their job flawlessly.”

Preliminary results of an NTSB investigation revealed that four key bolts designed to hold the door stopper in place were missing from the plane. Investigations were also carried out by the Federal Aviation AdministrationThe Ministry of Justice and the FBI, which informed the passengers in a letter that they may have become “victims of a crime.” Boeing has said It will cooperate fully in all examinations.

Wiprud told CBS News it was important to her to return to work after the incident and said she continues to have confidence in the 737.

Wiprud and the captain of Flight 1282 will be honored with the Air Line Pilots Association’s 2023 Superior Airmanship Award for their skill and professionalism during the crisis. She said the quick thinking of airline personnel made all the difference.

“My captain is a hero. The same goes for the flight attendants, the same goes for all the staff who supported us that day,” she said. “And that should be celebrated. Everyone survived.”