- hace 2 horas
On 28 April 1988, the upper half of the front fuselage of Aloha Airlines Flight 243 tears off, blowing out a flight attendant. The aircraft subsequently lands safely at Kahului, Hawaii. The fuselage failed from corrosion damage and improperly-repaired fatigue cracks.
Categoría
📺
TVTranscripción
00:00What's the worst that could happen on an airplane?
00:04Maybe this.
00:08There's not enough oxygen to survive up here.
00:13A freezing wind of hurricane force is roaring through the cabin.
00:17The flight crew call Mayday, but nobody hears.
00:21And the airplane is headed for a mountain.
00:24It sounds like a nightmare.
00:26For everyone aboard Aloha Airlines Flight 243, this is no nightmare.
00:31It's reality.
00:33Aloha 243, still up.
00:35When crash detectives discover what happened, their verdict shakes the airline business.
00:40This accident changed aviation history.
01:12Some people choose to trespass in that narrow space between life and death.
01:17It's a scary place to be.
01:20Surfers get there by chasing killer waves.
01:25Just occasionally, fate puts ordinary people, not just thrill-seekers, into that same deadly zone, where life hangs by a
01:33thread.
01:35On the afternoon of April 28th, 1988, it will happen in the sky over Hawaii.
01:47At 1pm, Aloha Airlines Flight 243 is preparing to depart.
01:54A Boeing 737 is on the tarmac at Hilo Airport, on Hawaii's big island, the southernmost of the Hawaii chain.
02:02Flight 243 will be just a 35-minute hop to Honolulu, on the island of Oahu.
02:08Serving the islands means that Aloha works its airplanes hard.
02:12They make short flights, but plenty of them.
02:16This airplane has been shuttling between the islands since early morning.
02:20It'll be its ninth flight today.
02:25For the flight crew, it's a routine they've followed for many years.
02:30Aloha 243.
02:32Roger.
02:34Captain Bob Schaunstheimer has been flying for 11 years with Aloha Airlines.
02:39Roger.
02:40His first officer, Mimi Tompkins, is hoping for promotion to captain after almost nine years with Aloha.
02:46Did you hear any more about...
02:51Each of the flight attendants has a long service record, too, but none so long as Claribel Lansing, known to
02:58everyone as just CB.
03:00Well, Mr. Kainer, welcome.
03:02Always good to see you, CB. You fixed some good weather for us.
03:05I've smoothed all the way.
03:06You bet.
03:07She's been flying for 37 years, since before the days of the first jet airliner.
03:12Let me help you with this.
03:13Oh, yeah.
03:14CB is the boss in the cabin, first flight attendant.
03:18Michelle Honda, a 14-year veteran, is number two.
03:22Jane Sato-Tomita has served 19 years.
03:25This is one of the most experienced crews you'll find in an airplane that's been crisscrossing Hawaii's islands safely for
03:3319 years.
03:34Circuit breakers.
03:36It's made more than 89,000 flights.
03:39On this day, only one other 737 in the entire world beats that record.
03:44Checked.
03:45Passengers have no reason to doubt they're in safe hands.
03:51Until one passenger, Gail Yamamoto, sees something that makes her pause.
03:59But what is it she's concerned about?
04:04And how worried should she be?
04:07Do I say something?
04:11Patricia Aubrey lives in Hilo, but has an appointment today in Honolulu.
04:15At first, she opts for the very front of the airplane, in row one.
04:20But somehow she feels uneasy and decides to move further back.
04:26She chooses a free seat in row 17.
04:38At 1.25, flight 243 is ready for take-off.
04:49This airplane often rattles and shakes on take-off and landing.
04:53But it's something the crew and regular passengers have grown used to.
04:58What's there to worry about?
05:04Hello, departure.
05:06This is Aloha 243.
05:08Climbing through 3,000.
05:11Roger.
05:12Climbing to flight...
05:13Though he's the captain, Bob Sean's timer has chosen to take charge of radio links with air traffic control.
05:18It's Mimi Tompkins who'll fly the plane to Honolulu.
05:24Most of the flight time is taken up in climbing to their cruising altitude.
05:30It'll take 20 minutes to climb to 7,300 meters.
05:40For many passengers, soaring high over the Pacific is all part of the daily routine.
05:50People like salesman Howard Kitaoka in row 5, he makes this trip often.
05:55When you've seen the view a hundred times, 35 minutes is precious time to catch up on paperwork.
06:03The flight's so short that the attendants serve drinks while they're still climbing.
06:08They can move around, but the passengers are still strapped in.
06:17It's 1.45.
06:1920 minutes into the flight, the aircraft is at cruising height.
06:22Honolulu Center, Aloha 243, leveling off at 240.
06:28The crew relax.
06:30See, where's that National Weather Service weather station out here?
06:33Is that in the old tower?
06:34In perfect flying weather, everything is following the familiar pattern.
06:39Do they?
06:45What was that?
06:46We had to get down!
06:48We've lost pressure!
06:50Ah!
06:51Ah!
06:52I saw a brilliant flash of light, and boom.
06:57Everything was going, was being sucked out of the plane.
07:01Here's what's happened.
07:03An explosive decompression has torn away 35 square meters of fuselage.
07:08We were in a tremendous blast of wind.
07:12The wind blast was unbelievable.
07:14A mass of things just went whoosh out the plane.
07:18You know, hair was up here.
07:20Everybody was in their seat, except the stewardesses.
07:25I saw the stewardess get smashed down in the aisle.
07:30I could see her hair blowing, and I could see blood, but that's all I could see of her.
07:35Jane Sato-Tomita has been struck by debris at row two.
07:39Michelle Honda has been thrown to the floor at row 15.
07:42There's no sign at all of CB Lansing.
07:45I will take control power.
07:47I can't hear you!
07:48Only seconds have passed since the explosion.
07:51The wind noise makes it impossible for the flight crew to communicate.
07:54I can't hear you!
07:56We've lost pressure!
07:57Now, for the first time, they gain a sense of what's happened.
08:01Visible over a mound of tangled debris, there's blue sky where the airplane roof used to be.
08:08The first five rows are now completely exposed to the sky on both sides of the plane.
08:15The initial threat of being sucked out is past since the airplane's now completely depressurized.
08:21But passengers are still in danger.
08:24My seatmate was flopping out outside the aircraft, because at that point, it was just the floor and no walls
08:33or seating.
08:34And so I grabbed him.
08:36The cold and oxygen deprivation are both potentially deadly.
08:41Just imagine the scene up there.
08:43The top of the airplane broken off.
08:44The passengers don't have any ability to get supplemental oxygen, because the critical tubing that feeds that oxygen is now
08:50gone.
08:51And at 24,000 feet, with very little to breathe up there, the passengers become incapacitated.
08:56That's called hypoxia.
08:58If you stay up at that altitude for any prolonged period of time, you become more and more physically disabled.
09:04With the top of the airplane gone, you now have 300 mile an hour winds blowing into that cabin.
09:08That's three times hurricane force winds.
09:11Those people were dressed for Hawaii in the springtime, not minus 50 degree temperatures.
09:15Any period of time at 24,000 feet, and those people will die.
09:22High above the Pacific Ocean, an extraordinary drama is unfolding.
09:29An explosion at 7,300 meters, aboard a Boeing 737 bound for the Hawaiian island of Oahu,
09:36tears 35 square meters of fuselage from the airplane, exposing passengers to the sky.
09:43The cabin is depressurized with no emergency oxygen supply.
09:48Unless they rapidly reach a lower altitude, where they can breathe again, the passengers will die.
09:57Captain Bob Seanstheimer takes over command of the aircraft from 1st officer Mimi Tompkins.
10:02He begins an emergency descent, dropping 1,200 meters per minute, its speed now increasing to more than 500 kilometers
10:10an hour.
10:12As the aircraft hurtles down, passengers face a new terror.
10:17Wreckage blocks their view of the cockpit, and when the airplane's split apart, the nose dropped down by around one
10:23meter.
10:24The plane is held together by just the narrow floor beams.
10:28The floor was buckling up, and you could tell the plane was bending in the middle.
10:37Michelle Honda can't go forward far enough to see whether the pilots are alive or dead.
10:42She tries to make contact via the intercom.
10:45Can anyone hear me?
10:47The wires are severed.
10:49As she struggles forward to try to reach the cockpit, she gets asked the one question she can't answer.
10:55Do we have a pilot?
10:57I don't know.
10:58Do we have a pilot?
11:01I do not know.
11:07Can you fly a plane?
11:09The terror of those on board can only be imagined, as she asks the one question no airplane passenger wants
11:16to hear.
11:17Can you fly a plane?
11:19Michelle Honda was coming up and cupping her hands and yelling in everyone's ear individually,
11:25Can you fly a plane?
11:27I was like, what?
11:29You know, get out of here.
11:31Is the pilot gone too?
11:34You know, because you couldn't tell if there was anybody up there.
11:37Do you know how to fly a plane?
11:40No!
11:44First officer Mimi Tompkins tries to alert air traffic control at Honolulu.
11:49Recordings from the cockpit voice recorder, the black box,
11:52analysed later by accident investigators,
11:55provide a dramatic record of exactly what took place.
12:04The nearest place where they can try to land is the island of Maui.
12:09Kahalui Airport lies between two volcanic mountains.
12:15Between them and safety lies a 3,000-metre-high summit.
12:20To fly from the location of the explosion to the safety of Kahalui Airport,
12:25the pilot needs to carefully manoeuvre, avoiding this high ground.
12:31Can the fragile aircraft survive the stresses of turning,
12:35or, if they ever reach the airport, of landing?
12:40And how can those on board survive?
12:43Jane Satotomita is barely conscious.
12:48Howard Kittaoka clutches her hand.
12:50The only faint sign of life is once when Jane squeezes back.
12:55I'm not exactly sure if she was conscious,
12:58but I did manage to squeeze her hand,
13:00and she responded by squeezing my hand,
13:03and we just held hands.
13:06The simple squeeze of the hand,
13:08at a time like that, is very, very emotional.
13:13Aloha 243! Do you read me?
13:17Mimi Tompkins is not getting through to Honolulu air traffic control,
13:21so she switches to the frequency for the tower at Maui's Kahalui Airport.
13:27Maui Tower, Aloha 243!
13:31Maui Tower of Aloha 243!
13:34Aircraft calling tower, say again.
13:36Aloha 243, we're inbound planning.
13:39At 1.48, three minutes after the explosion,
13:43the crew make their first voice contact with the ground.
13:46We are unpressurized.
13:48Declaring an emergency.
13:50Aloha 243, see your position.
13:53For goodness, to the east of Pakina Point.
13:56Descending out of 11,000.
13:58Request clearance into Maui for landing.
14:01Request the emergency equipment.
14:06Airport fire station.
14:07We have an Aloha 737, five minutes out.
14:11Approximately 20 miles.
14:13Cleared to runway 02.
14:15Decompression problems.
14:16Pilot is declaring an emergency.
14:18Thank you, Maui Tower.
14:21In the station. In the station.
14:24Attention in the station.
14:25We have an in-flight emergency.
14:27We have a 737, five minutes out, 20 miles.
14:31Runway 02.
14:32Soles on board, crew on board is unknown.
14:34It has a deep compression drop-off at this time.
14:37Runway 02.
14:38Runway 02.
14:52Four minutes after the explosion,
14:54at this lower altitude,
14:56they're able to remove their oxygen masks.
14:59With their speed having dropped
15:00to a little over 380 kilometers an hour,
15:03the wind noise decreases just enough
15:05for them to hear one another.
15:07Do you want me to call for anything else?
15:09No.
15:11Maui Tower, Aloha 243.
15:13Can you hear me on tower frequency?
15:17Aloha 243, I hear you loud and clear.
15:19Go ahead.
15:20We're going to need assistance.
15:23We can't communicate with the flight attendants.
15:26We'll need assistance with the passengers when we land.
15:32Okay, you're going to need an ambulance.
15:34Is that correct?
15:35Affirmative.
15:37During the descent,
15:38passengers experienced moments of pure terror.
15:41The plane kept vibrating and shaking,
15:44and the luggage racks were falling in,
15:46and there was electrical wires flying around,
15:48zapping and, you know, pretty much pandemonium,
15:52but it looked like the plane was ripping in half.
15:57And suddenly, there's a new problem
15:59for the flight crew to handle.
16:01Feels like manual reversion.
16:03What?
16:04The flight controls feel like manual reversion.
16:08It feels to the pilot as though hydraulic systems,
16:11like power steering in an automobile,
16:14have now failed.
16:15The airframe is under great stress.
16:17They need to land as soon as possible.
16:19Can we maintain altitude okay?
16:23There are so many thoughts that go through your head.
16:26Like, one of my thoughts was,
16:29man, don't put this thing in the water.
16:32I mean, you have people around you that are hurt,
16:35unconscious.
16:37I didn't want to have to say,
16:40well, I'm going to try to save this guy first
16:42and that guy first,
16:44whatever,
16:45and don't put it on the water.
16:48The crew fear that critical wiring
16:50and control cables may have been severed.
16:53Have any of the airplane's vital parts been damaged?
16:56Let's try flying with the gear down.
16:58All right, you've got it.
17:00There are lights to indicate whether or not
17:03the landing gear has safely deployed.
17:06The main undercarriage has extended as normal.
17:10But the light showing that the nose wheel has extended
17:12doesn't come on.
17:15The last thing the pilot wanted to see,
17:17especially with his airplane
17:18and the condition it was in,
17:20was that he didn't have a nose gear
17:21because when the nose touched down on the runway,
17:24it would have broken the airplane apart,
17:26therefore breaking probably the fuel tanks apart,
17:29which could lead to a very dramatic fire and explosion.
17:32Now Bob Schaunstheimer has to make a critical decision.
17:36Should he wait for confirmation
17:37that the undercarriage is down or land anyway?
17:41The textbook in this case would tell the pilots
17:43to overfly the airfield
17:44so that the air traffic controllers
17:45can look at the landing gear
17:47and give them a report whether it's up or down.
17:49The pilots would then have to maneuver the airplane
17:51all the way around the airfield,
17:53come in for an approach, and land.
17:56But with an airplane which might break apart at any moment,
17:59that's out of the question.
18:01Tell them we've got problems,
18:03but we're going to land anyway even without a nose gear.
18:06But they should be aware
18:07that we don't have a nose gear indication down.
18:11Aloha 243, wind now zero.
18:13050, the emergency equipment is in place.
18:16Okay, be advised we have no nose gear.
18:20We are landing with no nose gear.
18:23Okay, if you need any other assistance, advise.
18:26We'll need all the equipment you've got.
18:30Maui is not an ideal place to head for
18:32with a damaged airplane.
18:34The island's exposed north shore
18:36lies directly in the path of the trade winds.
18:39I've done that landing a lot of times,
18:41and that particular approach corridor
18:45is very windy
18:47because of the mountain on one side
18:49and mountain on the other.
18:50So it's a very bumpy approach.
18:54But that's basically all we had.
18:57Get in the brace of the distance.
18:59Brace yourself.
19:00Brace yourself.
19:01Get down.
19:02Any kind of in-flight turbulence,
19:04that would have put great stresses
19:06on the front end of the airplane.
19:07And there's a high probability
19:08that the cockpit would have separated
19:10from the rest of the fuselage,
19:12catastrophic loss of the airplane
19:13and a loss of life.
19:16With the airfield now in sight,
19:18Bob Sean's timer has more critical decisions to make.
19:21He begins to slow the aircraft for landing.
19:25Let's try flaps 15.
19:28An airplane's flaps are sliding panels
19:31at the back of the wings.
19:32To increase lift at low speeds,
19:34they need to be extended
19:36during takeoff and landing.
19:40Is it easier to control with the flaps up?
19:43Yeah.
19:45Put them back to five.
19:48Can you give me a V-speed
19:49for a flaps five landing?
19:52No two aircraft landings are the same.
19:55Pilots have to factor in many things.
19:58The wind speed and direction,
19:59passenger and fuel load,
20:01and the length of the runway before them.
20:04Do you want the flaps right down as we land?
20:08What?
20:10Do you want the flaps right down?
20:12Do you want the flaps right down as we land?
20:14Yeah.
20:16But after we touch down.
20:18Okay.
20:18A complicated formula provides the V-ref,
20:22indicating the safe landing speed.
20:24Even in a crisis like this,
20:26pilots have to reach for the manual.
20:30Extending the flaps fully
20:31will help act as a brake once they touch down.
20:34But to do it earlier
20:35could stress the airframe to braking point.
20:38What you have to remember is that the pilots
20:40weren't trained to handle a situation like this.
20:43With the top of their airplane missing,
20:44they became test pilots.
20:46The aerodynamic effects of the airplane
20:48were drastically different than they were used to.
20:50They really had to fly by the seat of their pants.
20:52Aloha 243.
20:53Wind now 0, 5, 0, and 20.
20:56V-ref, 40, plus 30.
20:59Flap 1, route flaps 15.
21:01120!
21:03Using her flight manual,
21:05the first officer makes the complicated calculation
21:07that will give their correct landing speed.
21:10Right.
21:13The safe speed for landing,
21:15taking into account the length of Kahului's runway 2,
21:18is calculated to be 152 knots,
21:21282 kilometers an hour.
21:29As the airplane slows,
21:31it becomes much harder to control.
21:33And so the pilot has to make another crucial call.
21:37Speeding up to keep control
21:39means he'll hit the runway faster than he should.
21:43He gambles that the higher speed landing
21:45is still the best option.
21:47Our approach speed, I felt, was hot.
21:51I mean, we were coming in hot.
21:52I don't know, don't ask me how many miles an hour it was,
21:55because I don't know.
21:56But from other landings,
21:58we were coming in fairly hot.
22:01Crash rescue teams prepare themselves
22:03for a worst-case scenario.
22:05At high speed and without the nose gear,
22:08a crash landing followed by a catastrophic fuel fire
22:11now seems inevitable.
22:13Under these conditions,
22:15the lack of a nose gear
22:15could have been a death sentence
22:17for everybody aboard this aircraft.
22:19A Boeing 737 with 95 people on board
22:23has suffered an explosive decompression
22:25near the Hawaiian island of Maui.
22:27It's still airborne, but only just,
22:30with 35 square meters of fuselage missing
22:32from the Aloha plane.
22:35As they prepare for an emergency landing,
22:38warning lights indicate
22:38that the forward landing gear has not deployed.
22:41If so, the airplane will most likely crash and burn.
22:47In the 12 horrifying minutes since the explosion,
22:50some passengers are convinced
22:51they're not going to make it alive.
22:53I thought he was going to go in the water.
22:56And I was eaten by sharks.
22:58And then we saw the mountain.
23:01And I didn't think we were going to make it over it.
23:03I just knew we were going to crash into that mountain.
23:06And then when we could tell,
23:08we could see the airport.
23:09And then, you know,
23:10then I burned to death
23:11because the plane blew up
23:13when we hit the runway.
23:16Suddenly, the news the pilots have been praying for.
23:19The gear is down.
23:21In phone call with command, the gear is down.
23:26Okay, thanks.
23:28Aloha 243, just for your information,
23:31the gear appears down.
23:33The gear appears down.
23:35You want me to go to Flaps 40?
23:37Help you?
23:38No, on the ground.
23:40The crew have had to make life or death decisions.
23:43In the next few seconds,
23:45they'll find out whether they're the right ones.
23:52Michelle Honda cradles her injured colleague
23:54as the critical moment approaches.
24:01Passengers comfort one another
24:02in what may be their last moments alive.
24:05The woman that was sitting next to me,
24:07her husband, he was on the other side
24:09in the next row up.
24:10She was next to me
24:11and they were reaching their hands out
24:12and they were trying to touch fingers
24:14to say goodbye.
24:15That was a really touching moment for me.
24:19It was when I really knew I was going to die
24:20because they were saying goodbye to each other.
24:24What gave me the most comfort
24:26was knowing that my wife and my kids
24:31knew what I felt.
24:33That was great comfort.
24:34I didn't need to tell them anything further,
24:37I love you or, you know, I worry about you
24:40because I felt that I had already said that.
24:50Though the forward undercarriage has extended,
24:52the crew still can't be certain
24:54whether it is locked in place
24:56or whether it'll collapse on landing.
24:58If it doesn't hold firm,
25:0140,000 kilos of airplane
25:02travelling at close to 320 kilometres an hour
25:05will smash nose down onto the tarmac.
25:25One reverse!
25:27Okay!
25:30Crossed reverser!
25:39Aloha 243, just shut it down where you are.
25:41Okay.
25:42Everything's fine.
25:43The gear did it.
25:45The fire trucks are on the way.
25:51Okay, shut it down.
25:53Shut it up?
25:54Okay.
26:01Oh, God.
26:22In this extraordinary video,
26:25captured moments after landing,
26:26the amount of damage the airplane suffered
26:28is difficult to comprehend.
26:32An emergency evacuation of passengers
26:34who escaped injury has just been completed.
26:38Some injured passengers have still to be helped from the plane.
26:42How it flew for those 13 terrifying minutes
26:45seems astonishing.
26:48Captain Bob Schoenstimer is thanked by passengers who just minutes before had expected to die.
26:54The tension is released.
26:56Oh, I just said, yes, baby.
26:59I said, yes, baby.
26:59That's all I said.
27:00The pilot did a tremendous job.
27:04Patricia Aubrey hugs her heroine, Michelle Honda.
27:08I was crying, and of course, everybody was traumatised, looking at the plane,
27:12and looking at the people bleeding, and just...
27:16I kept touching myself, going, I'm here.
27:18I can't believe I'm still alive.
27:22Her last-minute impulse to switch seats saves her from injury, maybe from death.
27:27Something was telling me not to sit there,
27:29because I didn't have a good reason to move, you know.
27:33My guardian angel was tapping me on the shoulder and telling me to move.
27:37A final desperate headcount by Michelle Honda confirms the crew's worst fears.
27:44CB Lansing, the veteran of 37 years flying for this airline, is missing.
27:51A sea search begins in the area of ocean where the explosion took place.
27:56Neither body nor wreckage are found.
27:59Jane Satottomita has started to recover.
28:03Seven passengers are seriously hurt,
28:05the worst injury, a skull fracture.
28:09But how have the rest survived?
28:11At the moment of decompression,
28:13it's just their seatbelts which made the difference between life and death.
28:17It went poof, a loud noise, and the whole thing come apart.
28:22And I personally thought we were all gone,
28:24and we were fastened, all had our seatbelts fastened,
28:29but most of us evidently, or we'd have lost a lot more.
28:32But there's something else.
28:34At the most critical moment, Maui's notorious high winds died away.
28:40I was amazed to see in front of the fuselage missing.
28:43What was so funny about the whole thing is that when it came in, it had no wind.
28:47I believe if you did have that wind, the aircraft wouldn't have made it.
28:52It would have split into two pieces.
28:54And it's a miracle.
28:56It's very much a miracle.
28:58This is one of the most remarkable flying events in history.
29:01No airplane has ever landed with this amount of damage.
29:04The only thing that was holding the forward section cockpit to the rest of the fuselage were the floor beams.
29:09Basically, they were hanging by a thread.
29:11From a close study of the fuselage, crash investigators tried to determine how the airplane structure remained in one piece.
29:21The critical factor proves to be the precise location of the explosion.
29:26The thing that saved them was that because the damage was across the top of the airplane,
29:31as the nose tried to bend down, these members through here are in tension, and it kept them in line.
29:36It kept them straight.
29:37So even though it was almost ready to break off, the structure was still strong enough here to keep it
29:43together.
29:43If this damage had been along the bottom, and the nose is trying to bend down this way,
29:48the structure would have been, this similar structure would have been in compression,
29:52and it would have buckled, and the nose would have certainly come off.
29:55So it was fortunate that the damage was across the top.
29:58How does the roof of a jet airliner simply blow away?
30:02The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, NTSB, is tasked with discovering what happened.
30:10Investigators pull the airplane's records, something like an automobile service history,
30:14and suspicion falls right away on the airplane itself.
30:18The best evidence for what happened, the missing fuselage section,
30:22is now lying at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
30:25But by carefully piecing together the clues they do have,
30:29investigators hope to solve one of the most spectacular accidents of all time.
30:35In the 38 years since its launch in 1967, more than 5,000 737s were sold.
30:42Somewhere in the world, a 737 takes off every five seconds.
30:47The accident airplane was number 152 of the production line, delivered in May 1969.
30:54The airplane was designed for a 20-year service life and 75,000 flights.
31:01This one had exceeded that number, though many were of short duration.
31:07Its fuselage was under constant stress because of pressurization.
31:12The fuselage of the airplane is actually breathing.
31:16It expands and contracts depending on altitude.
31:19When it's on the ground, it's in a contracted status.
31:21When it's at altitude, 24,000 feet, the fuselage expands.
31:26So the airplane is constantly cycling.
31:28That's pressurization.
31:30That will weaken the structure over a long period of time.
31:33And given the history of this airplane being a very high-cycle airplane,
31:37that probably had something to do with weakening the structure of the fuselage.
31:42With thousands of 737s taking to the skies each day,
31:46investigators need to be certain what made this one burst apart.
31:51An Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 bursts apart in mid-air over Hawaii.
31:57After 13 extraordinary minutes in the air,
32:00it makes an emergency landing on the island of Maui.
32:04Investigators need to discover what caused this spectacular incident.
32:10In Washington, D.C., Jim Wildey is one of the NTSB team who worked the case.
32:15His expertise as a metallurgist proves crucial.
32:19I got a call about 2 in the morning, in the middle of the night, from my boss,
32:23and there had been an accident in Hawaii.
32:25They were putting the team together, and I hopped on a plane and went to Hawaii.
32:30He takes samples from the remaining fuselage,
32:33and back in the lab discovers something barely visible to the naked eye.
32:37Hairline cracks like this, beside the holes where rivets had been.
32:43Figuring out how those cracks came to be there means going back to basics,
32:47to the way the Boeing 737 was put together.
32:52Airplanes are built from many separate panels.
32:55Where they overlap, they're bonded together by a powerful adhesive known as epoxy.
33:01Rivets hold the panels tight together, while the epoxy sets hard.
33:06On the Aloha airplane, there's telltale discoloration inside the overlapping joints.
33:11Here is the vital clue.
33:14You can see now where the dark material is the epoxy that was used to bond the two layers of
33:20the lap joint together.
33:21The white material you see here is corrosion damage of the aluminum fuselage skin.
33:27So the original intent was the stress that's trying to pull one skin away from the other skin piece.
33:32The stresses would go through the bonding and not through the rivets.
33:35Of course, as this thing becomes disbonded, now the rivets themselves are loaded,
33:40and especially this top row of rivets, and this is the row of rivets we think that had the fatigue
33:46cracking in it
33:47that led to the eventual opening of the roof structure on the Aloha 737 airplane.
33:53The files reveal that Boeing warned airlines, including Aloha, of problems with some early 737s.
34:01If the epoxy isn't applied at exactly the right temperature,
34:04if the panels have moisture or dirt on them, the bonding can fail.
34:10In warnings and service bulletins, some issued over 15 years earlier, Boeing spells out the danger.
34:20The Hawaii climate, with humid and salt-laden air, helps corrosion to occur.
34:25But instead of grounding airplanes for a nose-to-tail examination,
34:30Aloha has inspectors make occasional checks, often at night,
34:33when those on duty are least alert, working under artificial light.
34:39Those tiny cracks escape detection.
34:43These cracks go unrepaired, and now you have an airplane that is a ticking time bomb.
34:50There are other problems.
34:52Boeing's service bulletins and what are called airworthiness directives
34:56issued by the Federal Aviation Administration are often difficult to understand.
35:01Airworthiness directives are very complex, and read like a legal document.
35:05Aloha needed to have someone who could read that document
35:07and interpret it into plain English for the mechanics, the wrench-turners.
35:11That never happened.
35:13An airplane that has been worked so hard,
35:16serviced by mechanics who don't fully understand the briefings,
35:19is a recipe for disaster.
35:23Investigators now believe they know why the airplane burst open,
35:27but they don't yet know how.
35:30I was flying back from Hawaii to Los Angeles,
35:33and while I was in the air, I got a message that we needed to interview this passenger
35:40who had apparently seen a crack as she was getting on the accident flight.
35:44You saw something as you got on this airplane,
35:47which you pointed out to your roommate.
35:50Cynthia Johnson.
35:52Yeah.
35:52Cynthia.
35:53Yeah.
35:54Talk me through it.
35:55What did you see?
35:56What I saw was, to the right of the door, where the paint was white,
36:02well, it was a crack.
36:05It was like, not a hole exactly,
36:07but the metal on top had come away from the metal below.
36:10I was going to tell the flight attendant, you know,
36:13but they were busy, and we had to take our seats.
36:15Oh, yeah.
36:15I mean, you figured, you know, they know what they're doing.
36:17It's their airplane.
36:18I didn't want to make a fuss or anything.
36:20No, no, no, no, absolutely.
36:28The witness saw cracking in this area,
36:30and we found fatigue cracking back in here.
36:33So this is the line where the fatigue cracking joined up.
36:37One piece came down this way and folded off,
36:39and the other piece went across the top and came off to the right side.
36:43But something still doesn't make sense.
36:46Boeing designed the 737 and other of its aircraft
36:49so that this should never happen.
36:53Every 10 inches along the airplane are what are called tear straps
36:57inside the fuselage to strengthen it.
37:01If a tear begins, it should only reach the next strap
37:04before shooting off at a 90-degree angle.
37:08Though there's a hole in the aircraft,
37:11it acts like a safety valve.
37:12The purpose of the tear strip
37:14is to confine any kind of rip or tear in the fuselage skin
37:17to a 10-inch square, basically.
37:20If you allow it to propagate beyond this 10-inch square,
37:23you could then compromise larger sections of the fuselage
37:26and cause a blowout.
37:28The 10-inch square allows a controlled decompression
37:31and confines any structural damage to a very small area.
37:37So why has the safety valve failed here?
37:41The NTSB believe there were so many cracks in the fuselage
37:45that they simply joined together,
37:46running right through the tear straps.
37:50The Aloha airplane was kind of unique in a couple of ways.
37:54The way it was operated was with very short flights,
37:56so you had large numbers of these pressurization cycles
37:59and stress was going on and off on these rivet locations.
38:02And secondly, with the disbonding,
38:05all this stress is now going through the rivets,
38:07and that led to the linking up of these cracks
38:10and then the roof coming off the airplane.
38:13But is that the final answer on what happened to Flight 243?
38:17A new theory claims to shed fresh light on those dramatic events.
38:29Matt Austin is an engineer who lives in Honolulu.
38:33The story of Flight 243 both appalls and fascinates him.
38:38I flew very regularly on Aloha Airlines,
38:41and I'd been on that plane about a week before it actually lost the roof.
38:45You could tell that something was loose in the airplane.
38:49It's just like when you're in an old car and you hit a bump,
38:51you can hear the rattles in it that you won't hear in a new aircraft.
38:55In this case, when the aircraft landed,
38:57there would be noises and rattles you wouldn't hear on the newer aircraft.
39:02He begins his own investigation,
39:05scrutinizing the 4,000 pages of evidence and photographs
39:08gathered during the official inquiry.
39:10I am an expert in explosion dynamics
39:13and how pressure vessels explode,
39:16what causes them to explode,
39:18which way the cracks run as they're coming apart.
39:21In the case of the Aloha accident,
39:24the main focus from the aeronautical industry
39:26was they were looking at it as an airplane structural failure,
39:29whereas I analyzed it from the point of view of a pressure vessel failure.
39:33As he reviews the evidence,
39:35one question keeps recurring.
39:38Why is CB Lansing sucked out of the aircraft
39:41and not her colleague Jane Satoutomita?
39:44Jane was further forward than CB at the crucial moment.
39:51Jane was at row 2.
39:54CB was at row 5.
39:55The NTSB believes the roof separation began near row 3.
40:02Passenger testimony gathered shortly after the incident
40:05suggests that CB Lansing was sucked upwards and to the left,
40:09but not forward.
40:11I was on the aisle on the right,
40:13so I look up from my magazine,
40:15I see a pair of legs go up and out on the left,
40:19just back of first class.
40:22From where I was,
40:24if the nose was 12,
40:26this is at 11.
40:28Yeah?
40:30Forensic evidence suggests another possible scenario.
40:34Michael Sweet, an ex-cop,
40:36is now a specialist in blood spatter analysis.
40:41By studying bloodstains at crime scenes,
40:44he can help put a killer behind bars
40:46or free the innocent.
40:48He examines official photographs of the 737 fuselage.
40:54This is a large photograph of the left side of the airplane.
40:59The front would be in this location.
41:03There's a, what we suspect to be a bloodstain pattern
41:06on the, right beside the window, right here.
41:11Could this bloodstain be where CB Lansing's head
41:14impacted with the outside of the fuselage?
41:17The analyst believes so.
41:18Well, the fact that there are bloodstains
41:21on the side of this airplane
41:24suggests to me that the blood source in this case
41:28was momentarily trapped
41:29when it came into contact with the side of the airplane.
41:35If the flight attendant in this case
41:38was ejected outside of a gaping hole,
41:40I would expect her to disappear almost immediately
41:44and not leave any bloodstains on the side of the airplane.
41:46This analysis suggests only that she was trapped,
41:50but without explaining how or why.
41:54Matt Austin believes he has the answer.
41:59On April the 28th, 1988,
42:02a Boeing 737 owned by Aloha Airlines in Hawaii
42:06suffers an explosive decompression in midair.
42:09Amazingly, it lands safely with the loss of one crew member.
42:14Investigators blame metal fatigue due to poor maintenance.
42:18But a new and controversial theory has emerged,
42:21challenging at least part of the chain of events.
42:24What if a safety hole has opened up as it was designed to do,
42:28but directly above the flight attendant?
42:30Matt Austin believes CB Lansing is sucked into the safety hole,
42:34momentarily blocking it.
42:37All of the air that's trying to escape
42:39has no place to go,
42:41so it built up a huge pressure spike,
42:44and that's what blew the roof off the top of the airplane.
42:48What he's describing is known as a fluid hammer.
42:51In scientific terms, air is fluid, as is water.
42:56Here's a simple demonstration in a bathtub.
42:59The water is, in fact, escaping through the drain.
43:02As we move the drain plug back down towards the hole,
43:05it will immediately slam shut and create a force,
43:08which is a simple example of a fluid hammer.
43:10He believes this phenomenon, on a giant scale,
43:13caused the accident.
43:15It's very tragic,
43:16but if we don't look at the forensic evidence that's left,
43:20then we won't understand exactly what caused
43:22the explosive decompression
43:24and possibly prevent a future occurrence.
43:26The NTSB say that the fluid hammer theory
43:29is valid scientifically,
43:31but for them, the evidence still points to something simpler,
43:34a virtually simultaneous failure
43:36in the airplane's many weak spots.
43:38The safety board's investigations are never really closed,
43:41and we always would take into account
43:44any new information that comes out.
43:45I believe in the case of the Aloha accident,
43:47we have not changed our probable cause,
43:50and we still are sticking with the probable cause
43:53as we determined back in 1988.
43:59Since the crucial physical evidence was never found,
44:02what happened on board at the precise moment of explosion
44:04will probably never be known.
44:10Aloha Airlines management took most of the blame
44:13for their poor maintenance regime.
44:14The NTSB demanded that the Federal Aviation Administration
44:19do a much better job enforcing maintenance standards.
44:23Boeing had already improved their manufacturing process
44:26to prevent the adhesive becoming so easily contaminated.
44:31What happened on Flight 243 made flying safer.
44:36Soon after, Congress passed the Aviation Safety Research Act.
44:40This accident had a very profound effect on the aviation industry
44:43and the way we look at aging airplanes, old aircraft.
44:47We changed the way we monitor how they age,
44:49the way we inspect them,
44:50and of course now how we manufacture them.
44:53We use different processes.
44:54This was a very critical accident for aviation history.
44:59Those 13 terrifying minutes
45:01also left their impact on the survivors of Flight 243.
45:07I had to go through a healing process.
45:09I took fear of flying classes.
45:11And the old saying of you fall off a horse
45:15and you get back on it is very accurate.
45:18But it's a lot tougher to actually do it.
45:30Patricia Aubrey had to find a way
45:31of dealing with the memories also.
45:33Her way was to revisit the same piece of airspace
45:37where the terror unfolded.
45:39I'd go flying with my psychologist.
45:42You go through what they call desynthesization,
45:45where you confront your fear
45:47and you just do it so many times
45:49that you can do it without having a bad reaction.
45:55Before that happened,
45:56if something bad happened to me,
45:58I'd go, I hate life.
46:00But I don't hate life.
46:03I can deal with it.
46:05Bring it on.
46:06I'll take care of it.
46:07I'd much rather be alive.
46:13There's one further legacy of that fateful day.
46:16The ocean never did surrender the body of C.B. Lansing.
46:22Instead, a memorial garden
46:24honoring the veteran flight attendant
46:26was planted at Honolulu Airport
46:28beneath the big Hawaiian sky
46:31where she spent the better part of her life
46:33and where it was so suddenly ended.
46:39The ocean never did.
46:42The ocean never did.
46:47The ocean never did.
46:47The ocean never did.
46:52The ocean never did.
46:52The ocean never did.
46:53The ocean never did.
46:53The ocean never did.
46:53The ocean never did.
46:54The ocean never did.