US: 'Fuselage rupture' on Southwest plane that made emergency landing in US desert city

PHOENIX - Federal officials said a "fuselage rupture" forced a Southwest Airlines flight to make an emergency landing Friday in an Arizona desert city, and passengers described a large hole at the top of the plane.

The cause of the hole was not immediately known.

"It's at the top of the plane, right up above where you store your luggage," passenger Brenda Reese told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "The panel's not completely off. It's like ripped down, but you can see completely outside... When you look up through the panel, you can see the sky."

Reese said the plane had just left Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport for Sacramento, California, when she awoke after hearing a "gunshot-like sound." She said oxygen masks then dropped for passengers and flight attendants as the plane dove.

Terrorism was not suspected because an FBI spokesman in Sacramento, Steve Dupre, said "it appears to be a mechanical issue."

via ca.news.yahoo.com