Aloha Airlines Flight 243
Just minutes after landing safely on Maui, dazed but relieved passengers are helped down from the battered aircraft by the flight crew.
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Thirty-two years ago this past week, an Aloha Airlines flight, en route from Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii to Honolulu on Oahu was flying at at altitude of 24,000 feet when it experienced what the airline people refer to as an “explosive decompression”. In plain language, that meant a section of the roof and sides of the fuselage tore away in the blink of an eye.
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In that same eye-blink, a flight attendant disappeared. Clarabelle Lansing was chatting with the passenger in Seat 5A and, a split second later, she was gone— miraculously, the only fatality.
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The pilot and co-pilot stayed calm, managed to keep the plane under control, and diverted here to Maui, where they landed safely—a testimony to the training and skill.
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Four crew members and 90 passengers survived. One, an attorney friend of mine, had a window seat in the first class section of the plane. “When I looked down,” he said, “ I could see the ocean between my feet.”
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