Aloha Airlines Flight 243 was a scheduled Aloha Airlines 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 was unprecedented and remains unsurpassed. is the 118th day of the year (119th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar). ... Explosive decompression (ED) is a sudden drop in pressure that occurs in 0. ... Kahului is the largest town on the Hawaiian island of Maui and is located along the north shore of central Maui. ... Official language(s) English, Hawaiian Capital Honolulu Largest city Honolulu Area  Ranked 43rd  - Total 10,931 sq mi (29,311 km²)  - Width n/a miles (n/a km)  - Length 1,522 miles (2,450 km)  - % water 41. ... Hilo International Airport, formerly General Lyman Field, is an airport of the State of Hawaii in Hawaii County two miles east of the unincorporated town of Hilo in the United States. ... Honolulu International Airport (IATA: HNL, ICAO: PHNL) is the principal aviation gateway of the City & County of Honolulu and the State of Hawaii and is identified as one of the busiest airports in the United States. ... The Boeing 737 is the worlds most popular short to medium range, single aisle, narrow body airliner. ... Aloha Airlines (IATA: AQ, ICAO: AAH, and Callsign: Aloha) is an airline headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii USA. It operates extensive scheduled services within the Hawaiian Islands, and between Hawaii and the West Coast of the United States. ... Aloha Airlines (IATA: AQ, ICAO: AAH, and Callsign: Aloha) is an airline headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii USA. It operates extensive scheduled services within the Hawaiian Islands, and between Hawaii and the West Coast of the United States. ... The Boeing 737 is the worlds most popular short to medium range, single aisle, narrow body airliner. ... Hilo is the largest town on the island of Hawai‘i, and the county seat of Hawai‘i County, Hawai‘i. ... Honolulu as seen from the International Space Station Honolulu is the largest city and the capital of the U.S. state of Hawai‘i. ... Official language(s) English, Hawaiian Capital Honolulu Largest city Honolulu Area  Ranked 43rd  - Total 10,931 sq mi (29,311 km²)  - Width n/a miles (n/a km)  - Length 1,522 miles (2,450 km)  - % water 41. ... is the 118th day of the year (119th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar). ... Explosive decompression (ED) is a sudden drop in pressure that occurs in 0. ... Kahului Airport (IATA: OGG, ICAO: PHOG) is a regional airport in the State of Hawaii, located 3 miles (5 km) east of Kahului, Hawaii on the island of Maui near Haleakala. ... The island of Maui is the second-largest of the Hawaiian Islands at 727 square miles (1883 km²). Maui is part of the State of Hawaii and is the largest island in Maui County. ... An Airbus A340 airliner operated by Air Jamaica An airliner is a large fixed-wing aircraft with the primary function of transporting paying passengers. ...

Details

On April 28, 1988, the aircraft (registration number N73711) took off from Hilo International Airport at 13:25 HST bound for Honolulu. There were 90 passengers and five crew members on board. No unusual occurrences were reported during the takeoff and climb. ^[1] is the 118th day of the year (119th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar). ... Hilo International Airport, formerly General Lyman Field, is an airport of the State of Hawaii in Hawaii County two miles east of the unincorporated town of Hilo in the United States. ... The Hawaii-Aleutian Time Zone includes the state of Hawaii, and the Aleutian Islands west of 169º 30 W. It is the time zone located just west of the Alaska Standard Time Zone. ...

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. A foot (plural: feet or foot;[1] symbol or abbreviation: ft or, sometimes, ′ – a prime) is a unit of length, in a number of different systems, including English units, Imperial units, and United States customary units. ...

Part of the design of the 737 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 and the condition of the fuselage (that had corroded away and stressed the rivets beyond their designed capacity) 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." Fault tolerant design refers to a method for designing a system so it will continue to operate, possibly at a reduced level (also known as graceful degradation), rather than failing completely, when some part of the system fails. ...

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. Madeline Tompkins (born c. ...

At the time of the decompression, the chief flight attendant, Clarabelle 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. Flight attendant in an Embraer ERJ 145 LR (PBair, Thailand) Stewardess, circa 1949-50, American Overseas, Flagship Denmark, Boeing Stratocruiser In aviation, flight attendants—also known as sky girls, air hostesses, stewardesses or stewards—are members of a flight crew employed by airlines to ensure the safety of the passengers...

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.

Before landing, passengers were instructed to don their lifejackets, in case the aircraft did not make it to Kahului. Some passengers inflated their lifejackets while the aircraft was still in flight, possibly reducing or eliminating some injuries. (See photo)

The crew performed an emergency landing on Kahului Airport's runway 2 at 13:58. Upon landing, the crew deployed the aircraft's emergency slide/rafts, and evacuated passengers from the aircraft quickly. In the photo provided, First Officer Mimi Tompkins can be seen assisting passengers down the evacuation slide/raft. In all, 65 people were reported injured, seven seriously. The aircraft was a write-off.^[2] What could have been a major disaster ended with just one death; the rest of the crew and passengers survived. This seems to have been in doubt on the ground, as the tower asked by radio at one point: MyTravel Airways Airbus A320 landing Landing is the last part of a flight, where a flying animal or aircraft returns to the ground. ... Kahului Airport (IATA: OGG, ICAO: PHOG) is a regional airport in the State of Hawaii, located 3 miles (5 km) east of Kahului, Hawaii on the island of Maui near Haleakala. ... In accounting, writing off is the expensing of a balance sheet asset that has no future benefits. ...

"Aloha 243, are you still up?" ^[3]

Aftermath

After the accident, a full-scale investigation was launched by the United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). It concluded that the accident was caused by metal fatigue exacerbated by crevice corrosion ^[4] (the plane operated in a salt water environment). The root cause of the problem was failure of an epoxy adhesive to bond the aluminum sheets of the fuselage together when the B737 was manufactured. Where it failed to bond the two surfaces together, water could enter the gap and start the corrosion process. Because the corrosion products have a larger volume than the underlying metal, the two sheets were forced apart, putting extra stress on the rivets also used to hold them together. The age of the aircraft became a key issue (it was 19 years old at the time of the accident and had sustained a remarkable number of takeoff-landing cycles — 89,090, well beyond the 75,000 trips it was designed to sustain). Consequently, all major United States air carriers decided to retire their oldest aircraft to prevent a recurrence. Aircraft now receive additional maintenance checks as they age. However, several other aircraft operating under similar environments did not present the same phenomenon. A deep and thorough inspection of Aloha Airlines by NTSB revealed that the most extensive and longer "Check D" was performed in several early morning installments, instead of a full uninterrupted maintenance procedure. They also found that eddy-current testing inspections on the fuselage skin, as prescribed by Boeing, had not been performed.^{[citation needed]} Seal of the National Transportation Safety Board The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is a U.S. government independent organization responsible for investigation of accidents involving aviation, highway, marine, pipelines and railroads in the United States. ... This article is about a computer game. ... See corrosive for the hazard. ... A root cause is a cause that is at a root of an effect. ... Epoxy or polyepoxide is a thermosetting epoxide polymer that cures (polymerizes and crosslinks) when mixed with a catalyzing agent or hardener. Most common epoxy resins are produced from a reaction between epichlorohydrin and bisphenol-A. The first commercial attempts to prepare resins from epichlorohydrin occurred in 1927 in the United... Eddy-Current testing uses electromagnetic induction to detect flaws in conductive materials, amongst other operations. ...

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 89,090 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

Due to the plane's state, the airframe was scrapped by a Maui metal recycler after transport through Kahului. A belt buckle made from the scrapped plane now resides, along with a photo of the plane in the scrapyard, at the Paper Airplane Museum in the Maui Mall.

Dramatizations and memorials

• The TV movie Miracle Landing is based on the incident.
• In 1996, the Lansing Memorial Garden was inaugurated at Honolulu International Airport's Interisland Terminal near the gates used by Aloha Airlines.
• The plot of the novel Airframe references the incident.
• The National Geographic Channel series Mayday (also known as Air Emergency in the United States, and Air Crash Investigation in the rest of the world), a series about aircraft crashes and incidents, featured this particular flight in the episode, Hanging by a Thread. This was the title because the plane was held together by the floor beams only. The episode contained historical footage, recreations of what happened, and interviews with investigators and survivors.^[5]

A television movie (also TV movie, TV-movie, made-for-TV movie, etc. ... Miracle Landing is a made-for-TV movie based on a horrific air accident that occurred in April 1988. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... Honolulu International Airport (IATA: HNL, ICAO: PHNL) is the principal aviation gateway of the City & County of Honolulu and the State of Hawaii and is identified as one of the busiest airports in the United States. ... Airframe is a novel by Michael Crichton, first published in hardback edition in 1996 and as a paperback edition in 1997 by Ballantine Books. ... The National Geographic Channel is a subscription television network that features documentaries produced by the National Geographic Society. ... This article is about a TV series. ...

See also

• United Airlines Flight 811
• American Airlines Flight 96
• British Airways Flight 5390
• Japan Airlines Flight 123
• Turkish Airlines Flight 981
• List of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners

Cargo door recovered by US Navy divers United Airlines Flight 811 experienced an explosive decompression on Friday, February 24, 1989 after take-off from Honolulu International Airport, Honolulu, Hawaii. ... American Airlines Flight 96 was a regular DC-10 commuter flight operated by American Airlines, with a scheduled route from Detroit, Michigan to Buffalo, New York. ... British Airways Flight 5390 (callsign Speedbird 5390) was a British Airways flight between Birmingham International Airport in England and Málaga, Spain. ... Japan Airlines Flight 123 was a JAL domestic flight from Tokyo International Airport in Haneda to Osaka International Airport in Itami. ... Turkish Airlines Flight 981, registration TC-JAV, was a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 which crashed just outside of Senlis, France on March 3, 1974. ... Citing the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, an aviation accident is defined as an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft which takes place between the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight and all such persons have disembarked, and in which any person...

References

1. ^ http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/GenPDF.asp?id=DCA88MA054&rpt=fa NTSB Factual Report (PDF)
2. ^ 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 on 22 December, 2005.
3. ^ Macarthur Job (1996). Air Disaster, vol. 2. Australian Aviation, 158. ISBN 1-875671-19-6. 
4. ^ The Aloha incident. Retrieved on 17 August, 2006.
5. ^ Mentioned in the documentary, availible on Google Video as of June 25, 2007

Google Video is a free Google service that allows anyone to upload video clips to Googles web servers as well as make their own media available free of charge or through Google Video Store for a cost that they can set. ...

External links

• Paper Airplane Museum Final resting place of part of Aloha Airlines Flight 243.
• Pre-incident photos of N73711