[Too late to add on edit to my previous post]
In the photo, that’s a “plug”, not an exit door, I think? If so, why is there all the extra leg-room that you normally only have in a window exit row?
I think they removed a row of seats to get access to the plug.
It is exceedingly common to operate airliners with known malfunctions. Like probably 20% of all flights.
In all cases they’re documented when discovered, and there’s a Big Book of known problems to consult. The Big Book is called the “Minimum Equipment List” or MEL. And describes what can be left off or broken before the airplane is reduced to the minimum acceptable level of safety.
If the Big Book has an entry for the problem we can keep flying the jet for X number of days subject to Y restrictions. If there’s not dispensation in the Big Book, or we get to X days, then the airplane is parked until it’s fixed. The manufacturer’s engineers wrote that book and the FAA signed off on it.
Most problems have no restrictions; you’re simply operating with reduced redundancy and the crew needs to be forewarned and forearmed about what to do in the event of further malfunctions in that department. When restrictions are required they’re commonly things like no long overwater, or no higher than altitude X or do not leave US airspace, or degrade all performance calculations as if the airplane was 5,000# heavier than it really is, or …
Restrictions are much less common, maybe 1% of all flights. That’s still thousands per day industry wide.
With that background …
The 737 (MAX or NG) pressurization system is real simple and only has a couple of relevant warning lights. Neither of which would illuminate for unexpected slow leakage, which smells to the uninitiated like being a plausible warning sign of a hatch not sealing properly.
My bet is there will prove to be no direct connection between the lost hatch and the light.
That’s what it smelled like to me. My only similar experience was when the window on a Skyhawk popped open in flight. 
(It got my attention. I closed the window and made sure it was latched.)
Another possibility is the news report is garbled and the existing issue wasn’t / isn’t a particular warning light, but some other more vague or generalized concern.
I just pulled up my MAX MEL and there’s a list of 33 flyable malfunctions for the bleed air / HVAC / pressurization system as a whole. Of which 7 are directly related to pressurization rather than air supply or temperature control or air distribution. And none of which directly address a malfunctioning annunciator light.
There are minor differences between MELs for various models of the same plane, and also between different operators of the same plane. So my books are indicative, not definitive, as to an Alaska MAX 9.
The bit in the news about “overwater” suggests what they really mean is ETOPS; IOW flying more than one hour ~= 450 miles from shore. MAXs can be configured and operated under ETOPS. My former employer did not do that, but IIRC Alaska does. Under ETOPS, much of the MEL is not applicable. You can’t launch well out to sea with a whole host of reduced redundancies precisely because you’re a long way from anywhere and if your redundancy then falls to zero, you’re sorta in a crack.
At the same time we routinely fly (in my case flew) all across the Gulf, the Caribbean, offshore the east coast of the USA and the west coast of South America 200 or 400 miles out with various reduced MEL-able redundancies. We were still a long way from an airport, but that was deemed safe enough by TPTB.
I have no written guidance on what 737 ETOPS might include. But based on my experience with ETOPs planes I have flown, they’d plausibly include no ETOPS with one of the two pressurization controllers inoperative. Or one of two whole HVAC systems inop or one of the two temperature control systems inop.
None of which would necessarily have implications about the hatch.
An iPhone flew out of the Alaska Airlines flight and survived:
Curious what the terminal velocity of an iPhone is.
Brian
And I read that the seats next to the door panel were not occupied. I wonder where he was sitting.
Funny you mention that, because the first time I watched Beyond the Thunderdome that was exactly what I thought, that the plane was supposed to be something the pilot cobbled together from the wrecks of other planes. It was only years later that I learned the Airtruk was actually a real plane.
That would be a long and noisy flight if the plane is halfway there and has to descend to 8,000 feet. And can you get up to go to the bathroom? Those 3 martinis consumed over fear of flying aren’t going to wait.
Anyone with fear incontinence issues no longer needed to wait.
If the replacement door stops the problem then it’s not going to look good on Boeing’s assembly procedures unless the checklist reads “most of the door plugs pinned shut”.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the captain has just turned off the no urination in place light…
I wouldn’t be surprised if quite a few people needed to change their pants after landing.
You could always just pee out the door. It was at night, whose going to notice?
When you were a kid in the back seat of the car, did Mom or Dad ever flick their cig ashes off out the window? You know where any pee aimed out that window is going.
I’ve heard of plane interiors interred with the ashes from an urn. In this case timing is everything. You’ve got to work with the decompression process.
Wear your seat-belt and tuck your shirt in.
My mom worked at Gibbs Flying Service at MYF. She went up on an aerial burial flight. The cremains went out the window… and then right back in. (Also, she or someone else lost a brand new pair of Ray Bans.)
This had been reported by The Air Current on the 5th, though it was little more than rumour at that stage.
Preliminary information about the accident remains scarce, though two people familiar with the aircraft tell The Air Current that the aircraft in question, N704AL, had presented spurious indications of pressurization issues during two instances on January 4. The first intermittent warning light appeared during taxi-in following a previous flight, which prompted the airline to remove the aircraft from extended range operations (ETOPS) per maintenance rules. The light appeared again later the same day in flight, the people said.
I have no knowledge of the 737 pressurisation system at all but, unless there’s something like a “door open” warning that still works for the plug (doubtful), I’m struggling to see how it might be relevant.
As @LSLGuy says, it’s common to be flying with an unserviceability or two and some come with restrictions that might include limiting flights to non ETOPS routes.
It would be highly unusual to inform passengers that they’re flying in an aircraft that has been declared unfit for ETOPS, however I have had to do just that.
I was the FO on a flight that is normally flown as an ETOPS route but can be flown non-ETOPS at the cost of around 200 additional track miles. On taxi out we had an issue with an engine generator that we couldn’t resolve so we returned to the gate and engineering applied the Minimum Equipment List alleviation.
This meant we couldn’t fly ETOPS and had to run our APU for the duration of the flight. Flight planning supplied us with a non-ETOPS plan and we were sent on our way.
The captain is a bit of a sharing type and had explained the gist of the situation to the passengers while they patiently waited in the cabin as we were getting our ducks lined up at the gate.
Once we were in the cruise, an eagle eyed passenger in the front row noticed we were headed about 45° off course from the direct route and was bugging the flight attendants for more information. So on my toilet break, which conveniently occurred before the captain’s (“you go first mate, I’ll mind the ship”), I was asked to briefly explain ETOPS to the passenger, and and why we couldn’t do it.
It was clearly in airplane mode!