Qualla: Aloha Airlines Flight 243

Aloha Airlines Flight 243: Introduction

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NASA, Public domain. Passenger Gayle Yamamoto noticed a crack in the fuselage as she boarded. She said nothing. On April 28, 1988, Aloha Airlines Flight 243 -- a routine hop between Hilo and Honolulu aboard a Boeing 737-297 built in 1969 -- was cruising at altitude when roughly 18 feet of the cabin roof ripped away in an explosive decompression. The sky opened above rows of passengers still buckled into their seats. Flight attendant Clarabelle "C.B." Lansing was swept out of the aircraft. Sixty-five passengers and crew were injured, eight of them seriously. But the airplane did not crash. What happened next became one of the most studied events in aviation history.

Image: NASA | Public domain

Aloha Airlines Flight 243: Nineteen Years of Salt Air

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NASA, Public domain. The Boeing 737 registered as N73711 had been flying Hawaiian inter-island routes for nineteen years, accumulating 35,496 flight hours and an extraordinary 89,680 flight cycles -- takeoffs and landings. Most jets fly longer routes and pressurize fewer times; this aircraft's life c...

Image: NASA | Public domain

Aloha Airlines Flight 243: The Roof Opens

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NASA, Public domain. First Officer Madeline "Mimi" Tompkins was flying when the decompression struck. Captain Robert Schornstheimer immediately took the controls and began an emergency descent toward the nearest runway: Kahului Airport on Maui. The cockpit door had been torn away, and Schornstheimer ...

Image: NASA | Public domain

Aloha Airlines Flight 243: An Island Unprepared

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NASA, Public domain. Maui in 1988 had no emergency plan for a disaster of this scale. The island possessed exactly two ambulances. When the crippled 737 rolled to a stop at Kahului, air traffic control radioed Akamai Tours, a local van company based three miles from the airport, and asked for as many...

Image: NASA | Public domain

Aloha Airlines Flight 243: Flight Context

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk), Public domain. The accident occurred during a flight from Hilo International (PHTO) to Honolulu International (PHNL). The emergency landing took place at Kahului Airport (PHOG) on Maui, approximately 20.54°N, 156.28°W. The flight path crossed over the Alenuihaha Channel between the Big Island and Maui. From the air, Kahului Airport is clearly visible on Maui's central isthmus between Haleakala and the West Maui Mountains. The inter-island route is one of the most heavily flown corridors in the United States.

Image: Turkmenistan.airlines.frontview.arp.jpg: elfuser derivative work: Elfuser (talk) | Public domain