Alaska Airlines jet had three pressurization warnings before emergency landing

Alaska Airlines pilots reported pressurization warning lights on three earlier flights of a two-month-old Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet that made an emergency landing on Friday after a door plug tore off.
National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said late on Sunday the auto pressurization fail light illuminated on Dec. 7, Jan. 3 and Jan. 4, but she said it was unclear if there was any connection between those incidents and the rapid depressurization incident.
Alaska Airlines made a decision after the warnings to restrict the aircraft from making long flights over water to Hawaii so that it could return quickly to an airport if needed, Homendy said.
The missing door plug was recovered on Sunday evening by a homeowner who found it in his backyard, the NTSB said.
Homendy said the cockpit voice recorder did not capture any data because it had been overwritten and again called on regulators to mandate retrofitting existing planes with recorders that capture 25 hours of data, up from the two hours required at present.
She also painted a harrowing picture of the incident, saying the force of the decompression led to the cockpit door being blown open.