Aloha Airlines Flight 243

Aloha Airlines Flight 243 was a scheduled Boeing 737-200 flight between Hilo and Honolulu in Hawaii. On April 28, 1988, the aircraft suffered extensive damage after an explosive decompression in flight, but was able to land safely at Kahului Airport on Maui. One crew member was blown out of the airplane and another 65 passengers and crew were injured. The extent of the damage was only just below that which would have caused the airliner to break up, and the survival of the aircraft with such a major loss of integrity is considered to be unprecedented.

Details

Around 13:48, as the aircraft reached its normal flight altitude of 24,000 feet (7,300 m) about 23 nautical miles (43 km) south-southeast of Kahului, a small section on the left side of the roof ruptured. The resulting explosive decompression tore off a large section of the roof, consisting of the entire top half of the aircraft skin extending from just behind the cockpit to the fore-wing area.

First Officer Madeline "Mimi" Tompkins' head was jerked back during the explosion, and she saw cabin insulation flying around the cockpit. Captain Robert Schornsteimer looked back and saw blue sky where the first class cabin's roof had been. Tompkins immediately contacted Kahului Airport on Maui to declare an emergency.

At the time of the decompression, the chief flight attendant, Clarabelle "C.B." Lansing, was standing at seat row 5 collecting drink cups from passengers. According to passengers' accounts, Lansing was ejected through a hole in the side of the airplane.

Part of the design of these planes was for stress to be alleviated by controlled area breakaway zones. The intent was to provide controlled depressurization that would maintain the integrity of the fuselage structure. The age of the plane, the condition of the fuselage that had corroded away and stressed the rivets beyond their designed capacity, all appear to have conspired to render the design a part of the problem; when that first controlled area broke away, according to the small rupture theory, the rapid sequence of events resulted in the failure sequence. This has been referred to as a "zipper effect."

Flight attendant Michelle Honda, who was standing near rows #15 and #16, was thrown violently to the floor during the decompression. Despite her injuries, she was able to crawl up and down the aisle to assist and calm the terrified passengers. Flight attendant Jane Sato-Tomita, who was at the front of the plane, was seriously injured by flying debris, and was thrown to the floor. Passengers held onto her during the descent into Maui.

The crew performed an emergency landing on Kahului Airport's runway 2 at 13:58. In all, 65 people were reported injured, eight seriously. The aircraft was a total write-off. ^{[#endnote_NTSB]}. What could have been a major disaster ended with just one death; the rest of the crew and passengers all survived. This seems to have been in doubt on the ground, as the tower asked by radio at one point:

"Aloha 243, are you still up?" ^{[#endnote_ADV2]}

Aftermath

According to the official NTSB report of the investigation, a passenger noticed a crack in the fuselage upon boarding the aircraft prior to the ill-fated flight but did not notify anyone. The crack was located aft of the front portside passenger door. This crack was probably due to metal fatigue related to the over 89,000 compression and decompression cycles experienced in the short hop flights by Aloha, which was the second highest number of cycles in the worldwide fleet of 737s at the time.

In addition, Congress passed the Aviation Safety Research Act of 1988 in the wake of the disaster. This provided for stricter research into probable causes of future airplane disasters.

Both pilots remained with Aloha Airlines. Robert Schornsteimer retired from Aloha Airlines in August, 2005. At that time, Madeline Tompkins was still a Captain of the airline's Boeing 737-700 aircraft.

Relics of the plane

Dramatizations and memorials

The TV series Air Crash Investigation also reviewed the circumstances of this incident and contained both historical footage and recreations of what happened, and interviews with investigators and survivors.

In 1996, the Lansing Memorial Garden was inaugurated at Honolulu International Airport's Interisland Terminal near the gates used by Aloha Airlines.

The novel Airframe references this crash in its plot.

See also

• United Airlines Flight 811
• American Airlines Flight 96
• List of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners

References

1. ↑  National Transportation Safety Board (1989). [Excerpts from "Aircraft Accident Report- Aloha Airlines, flight 243, Boeing 737-200,- N73711, near Maui, Hawaii- April 28, 1988".] Retrieved December 22, 2005.
2. ↑  Air Disaster, Volume 2 by Macarthur Job, (1996), ISBN 1875671196, p158

External links

• [Review of Miracle Landing]
• [Paper Airplane Museum] Final resting place of part of Aloha Airlines Flight 243.
• [Pre-incident photo of N73711]

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