Passengers were left terrified after the “refrigerator-sized” part was ripped out of the plane traveling from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California, on Friday.
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There was reportedly no one sitting in the window seat when the piece flew off the plane.
Bob Sauer, 64, a physics teacher at Catlin Gabel School in Portland, Oregon, found the door in his backyard on Sunday and was instantly astounded.
Saurs said his neighbor insisted he check his backyard since a cell phone from the flight was found nearby their area.
He went searching for the plane’s missing piece with a flashlight and stumbled upon it leaning up on 50-foot cedar trees in his yard, The New York Times reported.
The physics teacher believed the trees acted as airbags and kept the part intact when it reached the ground.
“My heart started beating a little faster,” he said in an interview on Monday,” Saurs told The New York Times.
“And I thought there’s no way.”
Saurs said the door was cushioned by the trees through the physics term called impulse.
“Impulse is what you do to change the momentum of something,” Sauer said.
“You can do it with a big force over a short time, or a smaller force over a longer time.”
Saurs called the National Transportation Safety Board on Sunday and they came to retrieve the door on Monday morning.
The board said investigators were “currently examining the door plug” and it will go to an agency laboratory in Washington, D.C., for further examination, according to a Monday statement.
United Airlines also said on Monday it discovered loose bolts on some of its Boeing 737 Max 9s airplanes.
Alaska Airlines grounded all of its Boeing Max-9 flights following the incident.
The Federal Aviation Administration also grounded all Boeing 737 Max 9s with other airlines following the Alaska Airlines incident.
“Since we began preliminary inspections on Saturday, we have found instances that appear to relate to installation issues in the door plug — for example, bolts that needed additional tightening,” United said in a statement.
“These findings will be remedied by our Tech Ops team to safely return the aircraft to service.”
The FAA said that its priority is keeping the public safe at this time.
“The FAA’s first priority is keeping the flying public safe,” it said in a statement.
“We have grounded the affected airplanes, and they will remain grounded until the FAA is satisfied that they are safe.”
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