Remembering Aloha Airlines Flight 243: A Plane That Lost Its Roof At 24000 Feet But Managed To Land

 Remembering Aloha Airlines Flight 243: A Plane That Lost Its Roof At 24000 Feet But Managed To Land

On April 28, 1988, Aloha Airlines (AQ) flight 243 experienced an explosive decompression, resulting in the death of a flight attendant and problems with inspection and maintenance procedures.

The ceiling of the Boeing 737-200 was ripped open during the explosion, yet the Captain was able to land the damaged plane with 65 passengers and personnel on board. The flight attendant who was tossed off of the plane was never located.

The Boeing 737-200 aircraft was subjected to a standard walk-around pre-flight inspection by the first officer prior to the flight from Hilo to Honolulu, and nothing out of the ordinary was discovered. Flight 243 took off at 13:25 a.m. for the capital it would never reach that day.

An explosive decompression occurred as the airliner reached 24,000 feet. At that time, the plane's roof flew off, and Clarabelle Lansing, a 58-year-old flight attendant in row 5, was catapulted into the vacuum.

When the incident occurred, co-pilot Tompkins was flying the aircraft; 44-year-old Captain Robert Schornstheimer took over and steered the aircraft to begin an emergency descent to Maui, safely landing the aircraft without taking any more lives.

In addition to the fatality of the flight attendant, seven passengers and another flight attendant were seriously injured.

The Boeing 737-200 had 89,680 flight cycles and 35,496 flight hours when the event occurred. It was later discovered that immediately before departure, a passenger reported damage to the aircraft but did not notify the crew.

The anomaly was a longitudinal fuselage fracture, which was discovered to be a fissure in the upper row of rivets at the stringer S-10L lap joint following an extensive inspection. The failure was located somewhere between the cabin door and the jet bridge hood.

The Boeing 737-200 was irreparably damaged and was destroyed on the spot. The airplane also had damaged and dented horizontal stabilizers, both of which had been hit by flying debris.

Further examination revealed that the principal damage was caused by the complete separation of the upper crown skin and other fuselage structures. According to footage gained during and after the collapse, the failure ran 18 feet from the small aft of the main cabin to the aft entrance door.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) stated that the failure of the AQ maintenance program to discover the presence of severe disbanding and fatigue damage was the likely cause of the accident based on the findings.

Because fuselage inspections were scheduled at night, it was more difficult to conduct an adequate inspection of the aircraft's exterior skin.

The safe landing at Maui established the incident as a significant event in the history of aviation, with far-reaching effects on aviation safety policies and procedures for years to come.