US Boeing 738 Makes Emergency Landing with Large Hole in Fuselage

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Southwest Airlines Co. inspected about 200 planes overnight after a football-sized hole opened up in the passenger cabin of a jet in flight, forcing an emergency landing in West Virginia.

Travelers on the Boeing 737 aircraft could see through the 1-foot-by-1-foot hole that appeared during the flight Monday.

The cabin lost pressure, but no one was injured on the Nashville-to-Baltimore flight with 126 passengers and five crew members on board.

Passenger Brian Cunningham told NBC's "Today" show Tuesday that he had dozed off in his seat in mid-cabin when he was awakened by "the loudest roar I'd ever heard."He said the hole was above his seat. People stayed calm and put on the oxygen masks that dropped from the ceiling."

After we landed in Charleston, the pilot came out and looked up through the hole, and everybody applauded, shook his hand, a couple of people gave him hugs," Cunningham said.

It's not clear what caused the damage. The incident occurred just four months after Southwest agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle charges that it operated planes that had missed required safety inspections for cracks in the fuselage.

Southwest spokeswoman Marilee McInnis said the airline inspected 200 Boeing 737-300-series jets overnight at hangars around the country and discovered no other similar problems." It was a walk-around visual inspection just to check for structural integrity," McInnis said.