Aloha Airlines Flight 243

Coordinates: 20°53.919′N 156°25.827′W


Fuselage remains after the emergency landing

Incident
Date: April 28, 1988
Summary: Explosive decompression caused by metal fatigue and maintenance error
Site: Kahului, Hawaii


Route of Aloha Airlines Flight 243. In blue, the original route, and in red, the detour after the incident.

Aloha Airlines Flight 243 (IATA: AQ243, ICAO: AAH243) was a scheduled Aloha Airlines flight between Hilo and Honolulu in Hawaii. On April 28, 1988, a Boeing 737-297 serving the flight suffered extensive damage after an explosive decompression in flight, but was able to land safely at Kahului Airport on Maui. There was one fatality, flight attendant Clarabelle Lansing, who was ejected from the airplane. Another 65 passengers and crew were injured. Despite the substantial damage inflicted by the decompression, and the loss of one cabin crew member, the safe landing of the aircraft established the incident as a significant event in the history of aviation, with far-reaching effects on aviation safety policies and procedures.

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Aviation Accident Database -- Aloha Airlines – Boeing – B737-200 (N-73711) flight AQ243

FAA Lessons Learned From Civil Aviation Accidents


Photo of the fuselage damage on Aloha Airlines flight 243

Posted on: Thursday, January 18, 2001

Engineer fears repeat of 1988 Aloha jet accident



On April 28, 1988, an Aloha Airlines 737's fuselage blew open at 24,000 feet, killing a flight attendant and injuring eight people.
Associated Press library photo • April 28, 1988



Graphic: A different theory of Aloha Flight 243

Studying what goes wrong is Austin's passion

Austin's Web site: www.disastercity.com

By Gary Stoller
USA Today

As an Aloha Airlines jet began landing on Maui, passenger Matt Austin noticed the luggage racks rattling and swaying when the thrust reversers came on. ... It didn’t startle him. He had seen that happen before on other older Aloha jets. But Austin remembered the name painted across the plane’s exterior: Queen Lili‘uokalani. It was a 19-year-old Boeing 737. ... A week later — on April 28, 1988 — the same jet’s roof ripped open 24,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean, killing one flight attendant and seriously injuring seven passengers and a crew member. Austin counted himself lucky. Aloha Flight 243’s last flight didn’t really begin to grip him until the next year, when the National Transportation Safety Board issued its accident report.

This is a detective story. It’s about a mystery that aviation professionals say was solved 12 years ago and the persistence of Austin, a former Hawai‘i boiler inspector, who has spent all those years and $45,000 of his money trying to prove that the experts got it wrong. ... It’s also about an accident that forever changed maintenance practices for old planes and about an alternative theory that could have far-reaching consequences. Finally, it’s about the intriguing possible parallels between boiler safety and airplane safety.

Austin, a mechanical engineer, has no professional expertise in airplane accidents. He is an expert on boilers; the NTSB once consulted him about a train boiler explosion in Gettysburg, Pa. Austin, 43, runs a consulting business, Hawaiian Steam Engineering, which designs, inspects and restores boilers and locomotives. He also consults for the Navy on servicing nuclear submarine power plant components.

Since 1989, Austin has researched the Aloha accident independently, always maintaining that his only motivation is "engineering truth" and a conviction that sharing his insights can prevent similar accidents. He has a Web site, www.disastercity.com, where he details his theories on the Aloha accident and other disasters.

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