Alaska Airlines Seattle-Fresno flight diverted to Redmond due to electrical issues

Passengers spend night in hotels; reportedly said cabin lights flickered, generators lost power

REDMOND, Ore. (KTVZ) – An Alaska Airlines/SkyWest flight from Seattle to Fresno, California diverted to Redmond Municipal Airport late Friday night due to an electrical issue, and the passengers were put up at area hotels until they could finish their trip on another jet Saturday morning, SkyWest confirmed.

A representative of SkyWest, which operates Alaska Flight 3332, said the flight of the Embraer 175 regional jet, which can carry up to about 75 passengers, left Seattle shortly before 10 p.m. and was diverted to Redmond “due to a mechanical indication,” landing without incident in Redmond around 11:45 p.m.

“Our aircraft have several redundant electrical systems,” the airline said in a statement, adding that “the crew opted to divert to Redmond out of an abundance of caution.”

“We apologize for the inconvenience and worked with our partner Alaska to provide (hotel) vouchers for the guests onboard,” the SkyWest statement said. Another Embraer 175 aircraft left Redmond with the delayed passengers around 7:40 a.m. Saturday and landed in Fresno shortly after 9 a.m.

A Redmond hotel worker posted about the flight diversion early Saturday on Reddit’s Bend subreddit, saying they were “flooded with calls from people on this flight that needed rooms.”

Two of the unexpected Redmond visitors “said the lights in the cabin were flickering a lot,” according to the Reddit commenter. He and a second poster reported that the pilot told passengers “three of the four generators on the plane lost power.”

Another commenter who checked FlightAware tracking online said the plane was about 80 miles south of Redmond when it turned to land there.

The airline representative could not confirm those details.