Mayday (2013) s03e01 Episode Script
Hanging by a Thread
VOICE-OVER: What's the worst that could happen on an airplane? - Maybe this.
- LOUD CRASH There's not enough oxygen to survive up here.
PANICKED CRIES A freezing wind of hurricane force is roaring through the cabin.
The flight crew call 'mayday' but nobody hears and the airplane is headed for a mountain.
It sounds like a nightmare.
For everyone aboard Aloha Airlines Flight 243 this is no nightmare - it's reality.
Aloha 243, you still up? When crash detectives discover what happened their verdict shakes the airline business.
This accident changed aviation history.
Some people choose to trespass in that narrow space between life and death.
It's a scary place to be.
Surfers get there by chasing killer waves.
Just occasionally fate puts ordinary people, not just thrill-seekers, into that same deadly zone where life hangs by a thread.
On the afternoon of 28 April 1988 it will happen in the sky over Hawaii.
At 1pm Aloha Airlines Flight 243 is preparing to depart.
A Boeing 737 is on the tarmac at Hilo Airport on Hawaii's Big Island, the southern-most of the Hawaii chain.
Flight 243 will be just a 35-minute hop to Honolulu on the island of Oahu.
Serving the islands means that Aloha works its airplanes hard.
They make short flights but plenty of them.
This airplane has been shuttling between the islands since early morning.
It will be its ninth flight today.
For the flight crew it's a routine they've followed for many years.
Aloha 243.
Roger.
Captain Bob Schornstheimer has been flying for 11 years with Aloha Airlines.
His first officer, Mimi Tompkins, is hoping for promotion to captain after almost nine years with Aloha.
Did you hear any more about? Each of the flight attendants has a long service record too but none so long as Clarabelle Lansing known to everyone as just CB.
Well, Mr Kyner, welcome.
Good to see you, CB.
You fixed some good weather for us.
- We'll fly smooth all the way.
- You bet.
She's been flying for 37 years, since before the days of the first jet airliner.
- Let me help you with this.
- Oh, yeah, thanks.
CB is the boss in the cabin, first flight attendant.
Michelle Honda, a 14-year veteran, is No.
2.
Jane Sato-Tomita has served 19 years.
This is one of the most experienced crews you will find in an airplane that's been crisscrossing Hawaii's islands safely for 19 years.
Circuit-breakers.
It's made more than 89,000 flights.
On this day only one other 737 in the entire world beats that record.
Checked.
Passengers have no reason to doubt they are in safe hands .
.
until one passenger, Gayle Yamamoto, sees something that makes her pause.
But what is it she's concerned about? And how worried should she be? Do I say something? Patricia Aubrey lives in Hilo but has an appointment today in Honolulu.
At first she opts for the very front of the airplane in row 1.
But somehow she feels uneasy and decides to move further back.
She chooses a free seat in row 17.
At 1:25, Flight 243 is ready for take-off.
This airplane often rattles and shakes on take-off and landing but it's something the crew and regular passengers have grown used to.
What's there to worry about? RADIO: Departure, this is Aloha 243 climbing through 3,000.
Roger.
Climbing to Though he's the captain, Bob Schornstheimer has chosen to take charge of radio links with air traffic control.
It's Mimi Tompkins who will fly the plane to Honolulu.
Most of the flight time is taken up in climbing to their cruising altitude.
It'll take 20 minutes to climb to 7,300 metres.
For many passengers soaring high over the Pacific is all part of the daily routine.
People like salesman Howard Kitaoka in row 5.
He makes this trip often.
When you've seen the view 100 times 35 minutes is precious time to catch up on paperwork.
The flight's so short that the attendants serve drinks while they are still climbing.
They can move around but the passengers are still strapped in.
It's 1:45.
20 minutes into the flight the aircraft is at cruising height.
Honolulu Centre, Aloha 243, levelling off at 2-4-0.
The crew relax.
Where's that National Weather Service weather station out here? Is that in the old tower? In perfect flying weather everything is following the familiar pattern.
LOUD CRASH - What was that? - We have to get down.
We've lost pressure.
SCREAMING I saw a brilliant flash of light, then boom! Everything was goingwas being sucked out of the plane.
Here's what's happened.
An explosive decompression has torn away 35 square metres of fuselage.
We were in a tremendous blast of wind.
The wind blast was unbelievable.
A mass of things just went whoosh out the plane.
You know, hair was up here.
Everybody was in their seat except the stewardesses.
I saw the stewardess get smashed down in the aisle.
I could see her hair blowing and I could see blood but that's all I could see.
Jane Sato-Tomita has been struck by debris at row 2.
Michelle Honda has been thrown to the floor at row 15.
There's no sign at all of CB Lansing.
- I will take control.
- I can't hear you.
Only seconds have passed since the explosion.
The wind noise makes it impossible for the flight crew to communicate.
- I want you to move back there.
- I can't hear you.
Now for the first time they gain a sense of what's happened.
Visible over a mound of tangled debris there's blue sky where the airplane roof used the be.
The first five rows are now completely exposed to the sky on both sides of the plane.
SCREAMING The initial threat of being sucked out is passed, since the airplane is now completely depressurised, but passengers are still in danger.
My seatmate was flopping outside the aircraft, 'cause at the point there was just the floor and no walls or seating.
And so I grabbed him.
The cold and oxygen deprivation are both potentially deadly.
Just imagine the scene up there.
The top of the airplane broken off, the passengers don't have any ability to get supplemental oxygen because the critical tubing that feeds that oxygen is now gone.
At 24,000 feet, with very little to breathe up there, the passengers become incapacitated.
That's called hypoxia.
If you stay up at that altitude for any prolonged period of time you become more and more physically disabled.
With the top of the airplane gone you now have 300mph winds blowing into that cabin.
That's three times hurricane-force winds.
Those people were dressed for Hawaii in the springtime, not -50 degree temperatures.
Any period of time at 24,000 feet and those people will die.
High above the Pacific Ocean an extraordinary drama is unfolding.
An explosion at 7,300 metres aboard a Boeing 737 bound for the Hawaiian island of Oahu tears 35 square metres of fuselage from the airplane, exposing passengers to the sky.
The cabin is depressurised with no emergency oxygen supply.
Unless they rapidly reach a lower attitude where they can breathe again the passengers will die.
Captain Bob Schornstheimer takes over command of the aircraft from First Officer Mimi Tompkins.
He begins an emergency descent dropping 1,200 metres per minute, Its speed now increasing to more than 500km/h.
As the aircraft hurtles down passengers face a new terror.
Wreckage blocks their view of the cockpit, and when the airplane split apart the nose dropped down by around one metre.
The plane is held together by just the narrow floor beams.
The floor was buckling up.
You could tell the plane was bending in the middle.
Michelle Honda can't go forward far enough to see whether the pilots are alive or dead.
She tries to make contact via the intercom Can anyone hear me? The wires are severed.
As she struggles forward to try to reach the cockpit she gets asked the one question she can't answer.
- Do we have a pilot? - I don't know.
Do we have a pilot? I do not know! Can you fly a plane? The terror of those on board can only be imagined as she asks the one question no airplane passenger wants to hear.
Can you fly a plane? Michelle Honda was coming up and cupping her hands and yelling in everyone's ear individually, "Can you fly a plane?" I thought, "What?" Get out of here.
Is the pilot gone too? You know, 'cause you couldn't tell if there was anybody up there.
- Do you know how to fly a plane? - No.
First Officer Mimi Tompkins tries to alert air traffic control at Honolulu.
Recordings from the cockpit voice recorder, the black box, analysed later by accident investigators, provide a dramatic record of exactly what took place.
The nearest place where they can try to land is the island of Maui.
Kahului Airport lies between two volcanic mountains.
Between them and safety lies a 3,000-metre high summit.
To fly from the location of the explosion to the safety of Kahului Airport the pilot needs to carefully manoeuvre, avoiding this high ground.
Can the fragile aircraft survive the stresses of turning or, if they ever reach the airport, of landing? And how can those on board survive? Jane Sato-Tomita is barely conscious.
Howard Kitaoka clutches her hand.
The only faint sign of life is once when Jane squeezes back.
I'm not exactly sure if she was conscious but I did manage to squeeze her hand and she responded by squeezing my hand and we just held hands.
The simple squeeze of the hand at a time like that is very, very emotional.
TOMPKINS: Aloha 2-4-3.
Do you read me? Mimi Tompkins is not getting through to Honolulu air traffic control so she switches to the frequency for the tower at Maui's Kahului Airport.
Maui Tower, Aloha 243.
TOMPKINS ON RADIO: Maui Tower, Aloha 243.
Aircraft calling tower, say again? Aloha 243, we're inbound for landing.
At 1:48, three minutes after the explosion, the crew make their first voice contact with the ground.
We are unpressurised.
Declaring an emergency.
Aloha 243, say your position.
We're just to the east of Makena Point descending out of 11,000.
Request clearance into Maui for landing.
Request the emergency equipment.
- PHONE RINGS - Airport Fire Station.
We have an Aloha 737, five minutes out.
Approximately 20 miles.
Cleared to runway 0-2.
Decompression problems.
Pilot is declaring an emergency.
Thank you, Maui tower.
In the station, in the station.
Attention in the station.
We have an in-flight emergency.
We have a 737, five minutes out, 20 miles, runway 2.
Souls on board, people on board is unknown.
It has decompression problems at this time.
Runway 2, runway 2.
BELL RINGS Aloha 243.
Okay, the equipment is on the field.
It's on the way.
At 3,000 metres, flying west of the mountain, the pilot slows the aircraft and as gently as possible begins the right-hand turn towards Kahului.
Passengers sense that someone must be in control of the aircraft.
I've had some training as a pilot.
We were at wings level.
It wasn't in a dive or a roll, it was wings level.
At that moment I thought, "We have a chance.
" Meanwhile, those on the ground are unsure about what kind of crisis they're facing.
It's a small airport.
An airliner in trouble will test the fire crew's experience.
For the air controller, it's hard to hear the airplane at all.
Just to verify again - you're breaking up - your call sign is 2-4-3, is that correct? - Or 2-4-4? - Aloha 243.
Aloha 243.
Aloha 243, plan straight ahead for runway 0-2.
I'll keep you advised of any wind change.
Four minutes after the explosion.
At this lower altitude they're able to remove their oxygen masks.
With their speed having dropped to a little over 380km/h, the wind noise decreases just enough for them hear one another.
You want me to call for anything else? No.
Aloha 243.
Looks like we've lost a door.
We have a hole in the left side of the aircraft.
But the tower can't hear this new information.
They've lost contact with the aircraft.
Their transmissions aren't being picked up.
- STATIC - Aloha 243, are you still up? STATIC Is this a radio malfunction or something worse? Aloha 243? Hearing nothing from the stricken aircraft, the controller fears the worst.
Aloha 243.
RADIO: Aloha 243, are you still up? Aloha 243.
If you're still here, please ident.
Affirmative.
Aloha 243, roger.
I got your ident straightaway.
Cleared to land, wind 0-4-0 at 20 knots.
Communication is restored but the crew's ordeal is far from over.
Cabin, do you hear? Now Mimi Tompkins tries to contact the cabin by intercom but there's no response.
GREG: The crew doesn't really know what's going behind them.
The airplane is still flying.
The captain now has to maintain his focus on flying that airplane but he doesn't know what real damage exists behind him.
Tell them we'll need assistance to evacuate.
Right.
Maui Tower, Aloha 243.
Can you hear me on tower frequency? Aloha 243, I hear you loud and clear.
Go ahead.
We're going to need assistance.
We can't communicate with the flight attendants.
We'll need assistance with the passengers when we land.
Okay, you're going to need an ambulance.
Is that correct? Affirmative.
During the descent passengers experience moments of pure terror.
PATRICIA: The plane kept vibrating and shaking and the luggage racks were falling in and there was electrical wires flying around zapping.
And, you know, pretty much pandemonium but it looked like the plane was ripping in half.
SCREAMING And suddenly there's a new problem for the flight crew to handle.
- Feels like manual reversion.
- What? The flight controls feel like manual reversion.
It feels like to the pilot as though hydraulic systems, like power steering in an automobile, have now failed.
The air frame is under great stress.
They need to land as soon as possible.
Can we maintain altitude okay? There are so many thoughts that go through your head.
Like one of my thoughts was, "Man, don't put this thing in the water.
" I mean, you have people around you are hurt, unconscious.
I didn't want to have to say, "Well, I'm gonna try to save this guy first and that guy first," or whatever.
Don't put it on the water.
The crew fear that critical wiring and control cables may have been severed.
Have any of the airplane's vital parts been damaged? - Let's try flying with the gear down.
- Alright, you got it.
MACHINE BEEPS There are lights to indicate whether or not the landing gear has safely deployed.
The main undercarriage has extended as normal.
But the light showing that the nose wheel has extended doesn't come on.
The last thing the pilot wanted to see, especially with his airplane in the condition it was in, was he didn't have a nose gear.
Because when the nose touched down on the runway it would have broken the airplane apart therefore breaking, probably, the fuel tanks apart, which could lead to a very dramatic fire and explosion.
A second attempt to extend the landing gear.
The nose gear light is still out but the radio link is so bad the tower is still trying to assimilate the crisis.
Aloha 243, just to verify, you do need an ambulance, is that correct? They still don't understand.
Affirmative.
Roger.
How many do you think are injured? We have no idea.
We can't communicate with the flight attendants.
Okay.
We'll have the ambulance on the way.
There's a possibility that we .
.
we won't have a nose gear.
Now Bob Schornstheimer has to make a critical decision.
Should he wait for confirmation that the undercarriage is down or land anyway? The text book, in this case, tells pilots to overfly the airfields so air traffic controllers can look at the landing gear and give them a report whether it's up or down.
The pilots would have to manoeuvre the airplane all the way around the airfield to come in for an approach and land.
But with an airplane which might break apart at any moment that's out of the question.
Tell them we've got problems but we're going to land anyway, even without a nose gear.
They should be aware that we don't have a nose gear indication down.
Aloha 243, Wind now 0-5-0.
The emergency equipment is in place.
Okay.
Be advised we have no nose gear.
We are landing with no nose gear.
Okay.
If you need any other assistance, advise.
We'll need all the equipment you've got.
Maui is not an ideal place to head for with a damaged airplane.
The island's exposed north shore lies directly in the path of trade winds.
HOWARD: I've done that landing a lot of times and that particular approach corridor is very windy because of the mountain on one side and mountain on the other, so it's a very bumpy approach.
But that's basically all we had.
STEWARDESS: Get in the brace position.
Brace yourselves, brace yourselves.
Get down! Any kind of in-flight turbulence, that would have put great stresses on the front end of the airplane, and there's a high probability the cockpit would have separated from the rest of the fuselage.
Catastrophic loss of the airplane and loss of life.
With the airfield now in sight, Bob Schornstheimer has more critical decisions to make.
He begins to slow the aircraft for landing.
Let's try flaps 15.
An airplanes flaps are sliding panels at the back of the wings.
To increase lift at low speeds they need to be extended during take-off and landing.
Is it easier to control with the flaps up? Yeah.
Put them back to 5.
Can you give me a V speed for a flaps 5 landing? No two aircraft landings are the same.
Pilots have to factor in many things - the wind speed and direction, passenger and fuel load and the length of the runway before them.
Do you want the flaps right down as we land? What? Do you want the flaps right down as we land? Yeah, but after we touch down.
Okay.
A complicated formula provides the V ref indicating the safe landing speed.
Even in a crisis like this pilots have to reach for the manual.
Extending the flaps fully will help act as a brake once they touch down but to do it earlier could stress the air frame to breaking point.
What you have to remember is that the pilots weren't trained to handle a situation like this.
With the top of their airplane missing they became test pilots.
The aerodynamic effects of the airplane were drastically different than they were used to.
They were flying by the seat of their pants.
Aloha 243, wind now 0-5-0 at 20.
V ref 40 plus 30, flaps 1 through flaps 15.
120? Using her flight manual the first officer makes the complicated calculation that will give their correct landing speed.
- 152.
- Right.
The safe speed for landing, taking into account the length of Kahului's runway 2 is calculated to be 152 knots - 282km/h.
Get down.
SCREAMING As the airplane slows it becomes much harder to control and so the pilot has to make another crucial call.
Speeding up to keep control means he'll hit the runway faster than he should.
He gambles that the higher-speed landing is still the best option.
Our approach speed, I felt, was hot.
I mean we were coming in hot.
Don't ask me how many miles an hour it was 'cause I don't know.
But from other landings we were coming in fairly hot.
Crash rescue teams prepare themselves for a worst-case scenario.
At high speed and without the nose gear a crash landing followed by a catastrophic fuel fire now seems inevitable.
Under these conditions, the lack of a nose gear could have been a death sentence for everybody aboard this aircraft.
A Boeing 737 with 95 people on board has suffered an explosive decompression near the Hawaiian island of Maui.
It's still airborne but only just, with 35 square metres of fuselage missing from the Aloha plane.
As they prepare for an emergency landing, warning lights indicate that the forward landing gear has not deployed.
If so, the airplane will most likely crash and burn.
In the 12 horrifying minutes since the explosion some passengers are convinced they are not going to make it alive.
I thought it was going to go in the water and I was eaten by sharks.
And then we saw the mountain and I didn't think we would make it over.
I just knew we were going to crash into that mountain.
And then when we could tell we could see the airport, then I'd burn to death because the plane blew up when we hit the runway.
Suddenly the news the pilots have been praying for.
The gear is down.
Phone call the command, the gear is down.
Okay, thanks.
Aloha 243, just for your information, the gear appears down.
The gear appears down.
Want me to go to flaps 40, help you? No, on the ground.
The crew have had to make life-or-death decisions.
In the next few seconds they'll find out whether they're the right ones.
SCREAMING Michelle Honda cradles her injured colleague as the critical moment approaches.
Passengers comfort one another in what may be their last moments alive.
The woman that was sitting next to me, her husband was on the other side the next row up, she was next to me, and they were reaching their hands out and they were trying to touch fingers to say goodbye.
That was a really touching moment for me.
It's when I really knew I was gonna die 'cause they were saying goodbye.
HOWARD: What gave me comfort was knowing that my wife and my kids knew what I felt.
That was great comfort.
I didn't need to tell them anything further.
"I love you," or, you know, "I worry about you," because I felt that I had already said that.
Though the forward undercarriage has extended the crew still can't be certain whether it is locked in place or whether it will collapse on landing.
If it doesn't hold firm 40,000kg of airplane travelling at close to 320km/h will smash nose-down onto the tarmac.
- One reverse.
- Okay.
Thrust reverser.
Yes! Aloha 243, just shut it down where you are.
- Okay.
- Everything's fine.
The gear did it.
The fire trucks are on the way.
Okay.
Shut it down.
- Shut it off? - Yep.
Oh, God.
(passengers applaud) SIRENS WAIL In this extraordinary video captured moments after landing, the amount of damage the airplane suffered is difficult to comprehend.
An emergency evacuation of passengers who escaped injury has just been completed.
Some injured passengers have still to be helped from the plane.
How it flew for those 13 terrifying minutes seems astonishing.
Captain Bob Schornstheimer is thanked by passengers who just minutes before had expected to die.
The tension is released.
"Yes, baby!" That's all I said.
The pilot did a tremendous job.
Patricia Aubrey hugs her heroine Michelle Honda.
PATRICIA: I was crying and, of course, everybody was traumatised looking at the plane and looking at the people bleeding.
And I justI kept touching myself going, "I'm here.
"I can't believe I'm still alive.
" Her last-minute impulse to switch seats saves her from injury, maybe from death.
Something was telling me not to sit there because I didn't have a good reason to move, you know? My guardian angel was tapping me on the shoulder and telling me to move.
A final desperate headcount by Michelle Honda confirms the crew's worst fears.
CB Lansing, the veteran of 37 years flying for this airline, is missing.
A sea search begins in the area of ocean where the explosion took place.
Neither body nor wreckage are found.
Jane Sato-Tomita has started to recover.
Seven passengers are seriously hurt.
The worst injury - a skull fracture.
But how have the rest survived? At the moment of decompression it was just their seatbelts which made the difference between life and death.
It went poof! A loud noise, and it just, the whole thing come apart, and I personally thought we were all gone.
We were, the passengers, all had our seatbelts fastened, most of us, evidentially, or we'd have lost a lot more.
But there's something else.
At the most critical moment Maui's notorious high winds died away.
I was amazed to see front of the fuselage missing.
What was so funny about it was when he came in, had no wind.
Believe me - if he did have that wind, the aircraft wouldn't have made it.
It would have split into two pieces.
It's a miracle.
It's very much a miracle.
GREG: This is one of the most remarkable flying events in history.
No airplane has ever landed with this amount of damage.
The only thing that was holding the forward section cockpit to the rest of the fuselage were the floor beams.
Basically they were hanging by a thread.
From a close study of the fuselage, crash investigators tried to determine how the airplane structure remained in one piece.
The critical factor proves to be the precise location of the explosion.
The thing that saved them was that because the damage was across the top of the airplane, as the nose tried to bend down these members through here are in tension and it kept them in line and kept them straight.
So, even though it was almost ready to break off, the structure was still strong enough here to keep it together.
If this damage had been along the bottom and the nose was trying to bend down this way this structure, a similar structure, would have been in compression, and it would've buckled and the nose would've certainly come off.
So it's fortunate that the damage was across the top.
How does the roof of a jet airliner simply blow away? The US National Transportation Safety Board - NTSB - is tasked with discovering what happened.
Investigators pull the airplane's records, something like an automobile's service history, and suspicion falls right away on the airplane itself.
The best evidence for what happened, the missing fuselage section, is now lying at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean but by carefully piecing together the clues they do have the investigators hope to solve one of the most spectacular accidents of all time.
In the 38 years since it launch in 1967, more than 5,000 737s were sold.
Somewhere in the world a 737 takes off every five seconds.
The accident airplane was No.
152 off the production line, delivered in May 1969.
The airplane was designed for a 20-year service life and 75,000 flights.
This one had exceeded that number, though many were of short duration.
Its fuselage was under constant stress because of pressurisation.
The fuselage of the airplane is actually breathing, it expands and contracts depending on altitude.
When it's on the ground, it's in a contracted status.
When it's at altitude 24,000 feet, the fuselage expands so the airplane is constantly cycling.
That's pressurisation.
That will weaken the structure over a long period of time.
Given the history of this airplane, being very a high-cycle airplane, that probably had something to do with weakening the structure of the fuselage.
With thousands of 737s taking to the skies each day, investigators need to be certain what made this one burst apart.
An Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 bursts apart in midair over Hawaii.
After 13 extraordinary minutes in the air, it makes an emergency landing on the island of Maui.
Investigators need to discover what caused this spectacular incident.
In Washington DC, Jim Wildey is one of the NTSB team who worked the case.
His expertise as a metallurgist proves crucial.
I got a call about 2am, in the middle of the night, from my boss and there had been an accident in Hawaii.
They were putting the team together.
I hopped on a plane and went to Hawaii.
He takes samples from the remaining fuselage, and back in the lab discovers something barely visible to the naked eye - hairline cracks like this beside the holes where rivets had been.
Figuring out how those cracks came to be there means going back to basics, to the way the Boeing 737 was put together.
Airplanes are built from many separate panels.
Where the overlap, they're bonded together by a powerful adhesive known as epoxy.
Rivets hold the panels tight together while the epoxy sets hard.
On the Aloha airplane, there's telltale discolouration inside the overlapping joints.
Here is the vital clue.
You can see now where the dark material is the epoxy that was used to bond the two layers of the lap joint together.
The white material you see here is corrosion damage of the aluminium fuselage skin.
So the original intent was the stress that's trying to pull one skin away from the other skin piece, the stresses would go through the bonding, not through the rivets.
Of course, as this thing becomes disbonded now the rivets themselves are loaded, and especially this top row of rivets.
This is the row of rivets, we think, that had the fatigue cracking in it that led to the eventual opening of the roof structure on the Aloha 737 airplane.
The files reveal that Boeing warned airlines, including Aloha, of problems with some early 737s.
If the epoxy isn't applied at exactly the right temperature, if the panels have moisture or dirt on them, the bonding can fail.
In warnings and service bulletins, some issued over 15 years earlier, Boeing spells out the danger.
The Hawaii climate with humid and salt-laden air helps corrosion to occur, but instead of grounding airplanes for nose-to-tail examination Aloha has inspectors make occasional checks, often at night, when those on duty are least alert, working under artificial light.
Those tiny cracks escaped detection.
GREG: These cracks go unrepaired and now you have an airplane that is a ticking time bomb.
There are other problems.
Boeing service bulletins and what are called Air Worthiness Directives issued by the Federal Aviation Administration are often difficult to understand.
GREG: Air Worthiness Directives are very complex and read like a legal document.
Aloha needed to have someone who could read that document and interpret it into plain English for the mechanics, the wrench turners.
That never happened.
An airplane that has been worked so hard, serviced by mechanics who don't fully understand the briefings, is a recipe for disaster.
Investigators now believe they know why the airplane burst open but they don't yet know how.
I was flying back from Hawaii to Los Angeles and while I was in the air I got a message that we needed to interview this passenger who had apparently seen a crack as she was getting on the accident flight.
You saw something as you got on this airplane which you pointed out to your mate Cynthia Johnson.
- Yeah, Cynthia.
- Yeah.
Talk me through it.
What did you see? What I saw was to the right of the door where the paint was white .
.
well, it was a crack.
It was likenot a hole exactly but the metal on top had come away from the metal below.
I was going to tell the flight attendant, but they were busy and we had to take our seats.
You figured they know what they're doing.
It's their airplane.
I didn't want to make a fuss or anything.
No, no.
Absolutely.
The witness saw cracking in this area and we found fatigue cracking back in here so this is the line where the fatigue cracking joined up.
One piece came down this way and folded off, the other piece went across the top and came off to the right side.
But something still doesn't make sense.
Boeing designed the 737 and other of its aircraft so that this should never happen.
Every 10 inches along the airplane are what are called tear straps inside the fuselage to strengthen it.
If a tear begins it should only reach the next strap before shooting off at a 90 degree angle.
Though there's a hole in the aircraft it acts like a safety valve.
The purpose of the tear strip is to confine any kind of rip or tear in the fuselage skin to a 10-inch square, basically.
If you allow it to propagate beyond this 10-inch square you could then compromise larger sections of the fuselage and cause a blow-out.
The 10-inch square allows a controlled decompression and confines any structural damage to a very small area.
So why has the safety valve failed here? The NTSB believe there were so many cracks in the fuselage that they simply joined together, running right through the tear straps.
The Aloha airplane was kind of unique in a couple of ways.
It was operated with very short flights, so you had large numbers of these pressurisation cycles and stress was going on and off on these rivet locations.
And secondly, with the disbonding, all this stress is now going through the rivets, and that led to the linking up of these cracks and then the roof coming off the airplane.
But is that the final answer on what happened to Flight 243? A new theory claims to shed fresh light on those dramatic events.
Matt Austin is an engineer who lives in Honolulu.
The story of Flight 243 both appals and fascinates him.
MATT: I flew very regularly on Aloha Airlines.
I'd been on that plane about a week before it actually lost the roof.
You could tell that something was loose in the airplane.
Like when you're in an old car and you hit a bump, you can hear the rattles in it that you won't hear in a new aircraft.
In this case, when the aircraft landed there would be noises and rattles you wouldn't hear on the newer aircraft.
He begins his own investigation, scrutinising the 4,000 pages of evidence and photographs gathered during the official inquiry.
I am an expert in explosion dynamics and how pressure vessels explode, what causes them to explode, which way the cracks run as they're coming apart.
In the case of the Aloha accident, the main focus from the aeronautical industry was they were looking at it as an airplane structural failure, whereas I analysed it from the point of view of a pressure vessel failure.
As he reviews the evidence, one question keeps recurring - why is CB Lansing sucked out of the aircraft and not her colleague, Jane Sato-Tomita? Jane was further forward than CB at the crucial moment.
Jane was at row 2.
CB was at row 5.
The NTSB believes the roof separation began near row 3.
Passenger testimony gathered shortly after the incident suggests that CB Lansing was sucked upwards and to the left but not forward.
I was on the aisle, on the right, so I look up from my magazine and I see a pair of legs go up and out on the left.
Just back of first-class.
From where I was, if the nose was 12, this is at 11, yeah? Forensic evidence suggests another possible scenario.
Michael Sweet, an ex cop, is now a specialist in blood splatter analysis.
By studying bloodstains at crime scenes, he can help put a killer behind bars or free the innocent.
He examines official photographs of the 737 fuselage.
This is a large photograph of the left side of the airplane.
The front would be in this location.
There's awhat we suspect to be a bloodstain pattern on theright beside the window, right here.
Could this bloodstain be where CB Lansing's head impacted with the outside of the fuselage? The analyst believe so.
The fact that there were bloodstains on the side of this airplane suggests to me that the blood source in this case was momentarily trapped when it came into contact with the side of the airplane.
If the flight attendant in this case was ejected outside of a gaping hole I would expect her to disappear almost immediately and not leave any bloodstains on the side of the airplane.
This analysis suggests only that she was trapped but without explaining how or why.
Matt Austin believes he has the answer.
On 28 April 1988, a Boeing 737, owned by Aloha Airlines in Hawaii, suffers an explosive decompression in midair.
Amazingly it lands safely with the loss of one crew member.
Investigators blame metal fatigue due to poor maintenance.
But a new and controversial theory has emerged challenging at least part of the chain of events.
What if a safety hole has opened up as it was designed to do but directly above the flight attendant? Matt Austin believes CB Lansing is sucked into the safety hole, momentarily blocking it.
All of the air that's trying to escape has no place to go so it built up a huge pressure spike and that's what blew the roof off the top of the airplane.
What he's describing is known as a fluid hammer.
In scientific terms, air is fluid, as is water.
Here's a simply demonstration in a bathtub.
The water is in fact escaping through the drain.
As we move the drain plug back down toward the hole, it will immediately slam shut and create a force which is a simple example of a fluid hammer.
He believes this phenomenon, on a giant scale, caused the accident.
It's very tragic, but if we don't look at the forensic evidence that's left then we won't understand exactly what caused the explosive decompression and possibly prevent a future occurrence.
The NTSB say that the fluid hammer theory is valid scientifically but for them the evidence still points to something simpler, a virtually simultaneous failure in the airplane's many weak spots.
The Safety Board's investigations are never really closed.
We always will take into account any new information that comes out.
I believe, in the case of the Aloha accident we have not changed our probable cause and we're still are sticking with the probable cause as we determined back in 1988.
Since the crucial physical evidence was never found, what happened on board at the precise moment of explosion will probably never be known.
Aloha Airlines management took most of the blame for their poor maintenance regime.
The NTSB demanded that the Federal Aviation Administration do a much better job enforcing maintenance standards.
Boeing had already improved their manufacturing process to prevent the adhesive from becoming so easily contaminated.
What happened on Flight 243 made flying safer.
Soon after, Congress passed the Aviation Safety Research Act.
This accident had a very profound effect on the aviation industry and the way we look at ageing airplanes, old aircraft.
We changed the way we monitor how they age, the way we inspect them and, of course, how we manufacture them.
We use different processes.
This was a very critical accident for aviation history.
Those 13 terrifying minutes also left their impact on the survivors of Flight 243.
I had to go through a healing process.
I took fear of flying classes.
The old saying, "You fall off a horse and you get back on it," is very accurate, but it's a lot tougher to actually do it.
HELICOPTER WHIRRS Patricia Aubrey had to find a way of dealing with the memories also.
Her way was to revisit the same piece of airspace where the terror unfolded.
PATRICIA: I would go flying with my psychologist.
You go through what they call desensitisation where you confront your fear and you just do it so many times that you can do it without having a bad reaction.
Before that happenedZ if something bad happened to me I'd go, "I hate life," but I don't hate life.
I can deal with it.
Bring it on.
I'll take care of it.
I'd much rather be alive.
There's one further legacy of that fateful day.
The ocean never did surrender the body of CB Lansing.
Instead a memorial garden honouring the veteran flight attendant was planted at Honolulu Airport beneath the big Hawaiian sky where she spent the better part of her life and where it was so suddenly ended.
- LOUD CRASH There's not enough oxygen to survive up here.
PANICKED CRIES A freezing wind of hurricane force is roaring through the cabin.
The flight crew call 'mayday' but nobody hears and the airplane is headed for a mountain.
It sounds like a nightmare.
For everyone aboard Aloha Airlines Flight 243 this is no nightmare - it's reality.
Aloha 243, you still up? When crash detectives discover what happened their verdict shakes the airline business.
This accident changed aviation history.
Some people choose to trespass in that narrow space between life and death.
It's a scary place to be.
Surfers get there by chasing killer waves.
Just occasionally fate puts ordinary people, not just thrill-seekers, into that same deadly zone where life hangs by a thread.
On the afternoon of 28 April 1988 it will happen in the sky over Hawaii.
At 1pm Aloha Airlines Flight 243 is preparing to depart.
A Boeing 737 is on the tarmac at Hilo Airport on Hawaii's Big Island, the southern-most of the Hawaii chain.
Flight 243 will be just a 35-minute hop to Honolulu on the island of Oahu.
Serving the islands means that Aloha works its airplanes hard.
They make short flights but plenty of them.
This airplane has been shuttling between the islands since early morning.
It will be its ninth flight today.
For the flight crew it's a routine they've followed for many years.
Aloha 243.
Roger.
Captain Bob Schornstheimer has been flying for 11 years with Aloha Airlines.
His first officer, Mimi Tompkins, is hoping for promotion to captain after almost nine years with Aloha.
Did you hear any more about? Each of the flight attendants has a long service record too but none so long as Clarabelle Lansing known to everyone as just CB.
Well, Mr Kyner, welcome.
Good to see you, CB.
You fixed some good weather for us.
- We'll fly smooth all the way.
- You bet.
She's been flying for 37 years, since before the days of the first jet airliner.
- Let me help you with this.
- Oh, yeah, thanks.
CB is the boss in the cabin, first flight attendant.
Michelle Honda, a 14-year veteran, is No.
2.
Jane Sato-Tomita has served 19 years.
This is one of the most experienced crews you will find in an airplane that's been crisscrossing Hawaii's islands safely for 19 years.
Circuit-breakers.
It's made more than 89,000 flights.
On this day only one other 737 in the entire world beats that record.
Checked.
Passengers have no reason to doubt they are in safe hands .
.
until one passenger, Gayle Yamamoto, sees something that makes her pause.
But what is it she's concerned about? And how worried should she be? Do I say something? Patricia Aubrey lives in Hilo but has an appointment today in Honolulu.
At first she opts for the very front of the airplane in row 1.
But somehow she feels uneasy and decides to move further back.
She chooses a free seat in row 17.
At 1:25, Flight 243 is ready for take-off.
This airplane often rattles and shakes on take-off and landing but it's something the crew and regular passengers have grown used to.
What's there to worry about? RADIO: Departure, this is Aloha 243 climbing through 3,000.
Roger.
Climbing to Though he's the captain, Bob Schornstheimer has chosen to take charge of radio links with air traffic control.
It's Mimi Tompkins who will fly the plane to Honolulu.
Most of the flight time is taken up in climbing to their cruising altitude.
It'll take 20 minutes to climb to 7,300 metres.
For many passengers soaring high over the Pacific is all part of the daily routine.
People like salesman Howard Kitaoka in row 5.
He makes this trip often.
When you've seen the view 100 times 35 minutes is precious time to catch up on paperwork.
The flight's so short that the attendants serve drinks while they are still climbing.
They can move around but the passengers are still strapped in.
It's 1:45.
20 minutes into the flight the aircraft is at cruising height.
Honolulu Centre, Aloha 243, levelling off at 2-4-0.
The crew relax.
Where's that National Weather Service weather station out here? Is that in the old tower? In perfect flying weather everything is following the familiar pattern.
LOUD CRASH - What was that? - We have to get down.
We've lost pressure.
SCREAMING I saw a brilliant flash of light, then boom! Everything was goingwas being sucked out of the plane.
Here's what's happened.
An explosive decompression has torn away 35 square metres of fuselage.
We were in a tremendous blast of wind.
The wind blast was unbelievable.
A mass of things just went whoosh out the plane.
You know, hair was up here.
Everybody was in their seat except the stewardesses.
I saw the stewardess get smashed down in the aisle.
I could see her hair blowing and I could see blood but that's all I could see.
Jane Sato-Tomita has been struck by debris at row 2.
Michelle Honda has been thrown to the floor at row 15.
There's no sign at all of CB Lansing.
- I will take control.
- I can't hear you.
Only seconds have passed since the explosion.
The wind noise makes it impossible for the flight crew to communicate.
- I want you to move back there.
- I can't hear you.
Now for the first time they gain a sense of what's happened.
Visible over a mound of tangled debris there's blue sky where the airplane roof used the be.
The first five rows are now completely exposed to the sky on both sides of the plane.
SCREAMING The initial threat of being sucked out is passed, since the airplane is now completely depressurised, but passengers are still in danger.
My seatmate was flopping outside the aircraft, 'cause at the point there was just the floor and no walls or seating.
And so I grabbed him.
The cold and oxygen deprivation are both potentially deadly.
Just imagine the scene up there.
The top of the airplane broken off, the passengers don't have any ability to get supplemental oxygen because the critical tubing that feeds that oxygen is now gone.
At 24,000 feet, with very little to breathe up there, the passengers become incapacitated.
That's called hypoxia.
If you stay up at that altitude for any prolonged period of time you become more and more physically disabled.
With the top of the airplane gone you now have 300mph winds blowing into that cabin.
That's three times hurricane-force winds.
Those people were dressed for Hawaii in the springtime, not -50 degree temperatures.
Any period of time at 24,000 feet and those people will die.
High above the Pacific Ocean an extraordinary drama is unfolding.
An explosion at 7,300 metres aboard a Boeing 737 bound for the Hawaiian island of Oahu tears 35 square metres of fuselage from the airplane, exposing passengers to the sky.
The cabin is depressurised with no emergency oxygen supply.
Unless they rapidly reach a lower attitude where they can breathe again the passengers will die.
Captain Bob Schornstheimer takes over command of the aircraft from First Officer Mimi Tompkins.
He begins an emergency descent dropping 1,200 metres per minute, Its speed now increasing to more than 500km/h.
As the aircraft hurtles down passengers face a new terror.
Wreckage blocks their view of the cockpit, and when the airplane split apart the nose dropped down by around one metre.
The plane is held together by just the narrow floor beams.
The floor was buckling up.
You could tell the plane was bending in the middle.
Michelle Honda can't go forward far enough to see whether the pilots are alive or dead.
She tries to make contact via the intercom Can anyone hear me? The wires are severed.
As she struggles forward to try to reach the cockpit she gets asked the one question she can't answer.
- Do we have a pilot? - I don't know.
Do we have a pilot? I do not know! Can you fly a plane? The terror of those on board can only be imagined as she asks the one question no airplane passenger wants to hear.
Can you fly a plane? Michelle Honda was coming up and cupping her hands and yelling in everyone's ear individually, "Can you fly a plane?" I thought, "What?" Get out of here.
Is the pilot gone too? You know, 'cause you couldn't tell if there was anybody up there.
- Do you know how to fly a plane? - No.
First Officer Mimi Tompkins tries to alert air traffic control at Honolulu.
Recordings from the cockpit voice recorder, the black box, analysed later by accident investigators, provide a dramatic record of exactly what took place.
The nearest place where they can try to land is the island of Maui.
Kahului Airport lies between two volcanic mountains.
Between them and safety lies a 3,000-metre high summit.
To fly from the location of the explosion to the safety of Kahului Airport the pilot needs to carefully manoeuvre, avoiding this high ground.
Can the fragile aircraft survive the stresses of turning or, if they ever reach the airport, of landing? And how can those on board survive? Jane Sato-Tomita is barely conscious.
Howard Kitaoka clutches her hand.
The only faint sign of life is once when Jane squeezes back.
I'm not exactly sure if she was conscious but I did manage to squeeze her hand and she responded by squeezing my hand and we just held hands.
The simple squeeze of the hand at a time like that is very, very emotional.
TOMPKINS: Aloha 2-4-3.
Do you read me? Mimi Tompkins is not getting through to Honolulu air traffic control so she switches to the frequency for the tower at Maui's Kahului Airport.
Maui Tower, Aloha 243.
TOMPKINS ON RADIO: Maui Tower, Aloha 243.
Aircraft calling tower, say again? Aloha 243, we're inbound for landing.
At 1:48, three minutes after the explosion, the crew make their first voice contact with the ground.
We are unpressurised.
Declaring an emergency.
Aloha 243, say your position.
We're just to the east of Makena Point descending out of 11,000.
Request clearance into Maui for landing.
Request the emergency equipment.
- PHONE RINGS - Airport Fire Station.
We have an Aloha 737, five minutes out.
Approximately 20 miles.
Cleared to runway 0-2.
Decompression problems.
Pilot is declaring an emergency.
Thank you, Maui tower.
In the station, in the station.
Attention in the station.
We have an in-flight emergency.
We have a 737, five minutes out, 20 miles, runway 2.
Souls on board, people on board is unknown.
It has decompression problems at this time.
Runway 2, runway 2.
BELL RINGS Aloha 243.
Okay, the equipment is on the field.
It's on the way.
At 3,000 metres, flying west of the mountain, the pilot slows the aircraft and as gently as possible begins the right-hand turn towards Kahului.
Passengers sense that someone must be in control of the aircraft.
I've had some training as a pilot.
We were at wings level.
It wasn't in a dive or a roll, it was wings level.
At that moment I thought, "We have a chance.
" Meanwhile, those on the ground are unsure about what kind of crisis they're facing.
It's a small airport.
An airliner in trouble will test the fire crew's experience.
For the air controller, it's hard to hear the airplane at all.
Just to verify again - you're breaking up - your call sign is 2-4-3, is that correct? - Or 2-4-4? - Aloha 243.
Aloha 243.
Aloha 243, plan straight ahead for runway 0-2.
I'll keep you advised of any wind change.
Four minutes after the explosion.
At this lower altitude they're able to remove their oxygen masks.
With their speed having dropped to a little over 380km/h, the wind noise decreases just enough for them hear one another.
You want me to call for anything else? No.
Aloha 243.
Looks like we've lost a door.
We have a hole in the left side of the aircraft.
But the tower can't hear this new information.
They've lost contact with the aircraft.
Their transmissions aren't being picked up.
- STATIC - Aloha 243, are you still up? STATIC Is this a radio malfunction or something worse? Aloha 243? Hearing nothing from the stricken aircraft, the controller fears the worst.
Aloha 243.
RADIO: Aloha 243, are you still up? Aloha 243.
If you're still here, please ident.
Affirmative.
Aloha 243, roger.
I got your ident straightaway.
Cleared to land, wind 0-4-0 at 20 knots.
Communication is restored but the crew's ordeal is far from over.
Cabin, do you hear? Now Mimi Tompkins tries to contact the cabin by intercom but there's no response.
GREG: The crew doesn't really know what's going behind them.
The airplane is still flying.
The captain now has to maintain his focus on flying that airplane but he doesn't know what real damage exists behind him.
Tell them we'll need assistance to evacuate.
Right.
Maui Tower, Aloha 243.
Can you hear me on tower frequency? Aloha 243, I hear you loud and clear.
Go ahead.
We're going to need assistance.
We can't communicate with the flight attendants.
We'll need assistance with the passengers when we land.
Okay, you're going to need an ambulance.
Is that correct? Affirmative.
During the descent passengers experience moments of pure terror.
PATRICIA: The plane kept vibrating and shaking and the luggage racks were falling in and there was electrical wires flying around zapping.
And, you know, pretty much pandemonium but it looked like the plane was ripping in half.
SCREAMING And suddenly there's a new problem for the flight crew to handle.
- Feels like manual reversion.
- What? The flight controls feel like manual reversion.
It feels like to the pilot as though hydraulic systems, like power steering in an automobile, have now failed.
The air frame is under great stress.
They need to land as soon as possible.
Can we maintain altitude okay? There are so many thoughts that go through your head.
Like one of my thoughts was, "Man, don't put this thing in the water.
" I mean, you have people around you are hurt, unconscious.
I didn't want to have to say, "Well, I'm gonna try to save this guy first and that guy first," or whatever.
Don't put it on the water.
The crew fear that critical wiring and control cables may have been severed.
Have any of the airplane's vital parts been damaged? - Let's try flying with the gear down.
- Alright, you got it.
MACHINE BEEPS There are lights to indicate whether or not the landing gear has safely deployed.
The main undercarriage has extended as normal.
But the light showing that the nose wheel has extended doesn't come on.
The last thing the pilot wanted to see, especially with his airplane in the condition it was in, was he didn't have a nose gear.
Because when the nose touched down on the runway it would have broken the airplane apart therefore breaking, probably, the fuel tanks apart, which could lead to a very dramatic fire and explosion.
A second attempt to extend the landing gear.
The nose gear light is still out but the radio link is so bad the tower is still trying to assimilate the crisis.
Aloha 243, just to verify, you do need an ambulance, is that correct? They still don't understand.
Affirmative.
Roger.
How many do you think are injured? We have no idea.
We can't communicate with the flight attendants.
Okay.
We'll have the ambulance on the way.
There's a possibility that we .
.
we won't have a nose gear.
Now Bob Schornstheimer has to make a critical decision.
Should he wait for confirmation that the undercarriage is down or land anyway? The text book, in this case, tells pilots to overfly the airfields so air traffic controllers can look at the landing gear and give them a report whether it's up or down.
The pilots would have to manoeuvre the airplane all the way around the airfield to come in for an approach and land.
But with an airplane which might break apart at any moment that's out of the question.
Tell them we've got problems but we're going to land anyway, even without a nose gear.
They should be aware that we don't have a nose gear indication down.
Aloha 243, Wind now 0-5-0.
The emergency equipment is in place.
Okay.
Be advised we have no nose gear.
We are landing with no nose gear.
Okay.
If you need any other assistance, advise.
We'll need all the equipment you've got.
Maui is not an ideal place to head for with a damaged airplane.
The island's exposed north shore lies directly in the path of trade winds.
HOWARD: I've done that landing a lot of times and that particular approach corridor is very windy because of the mountain on one side and mountain on the other, so it's a very bumpy approach.
But that's basically all we had.
STEWARDESS: Get in the brace position.
Brace yourselves, brace yourselves.
Get down! Any kind of in-flight turbulence, that would have put great stresses on the front end of the airplane, and there's a high probability the cockpit would have separated from the rest of the fuselage.
Catastrophic loss of the airplane and loss of life.
With the airfield now in sight, Bob Schornstheimer has more critical decisions to make.
He begins to slow the aircraft for landing.
Let's try flaps 15.
An airplanes flaps are sliding panels at the back of the wings.
To increase lift at low speeds they need to be extended during take-off and landing.
Is it easier to control with the flaps up? Yeah.
Put them back to 5.
Can you give me a V speed for a flaps 5 landing? No two aircraft landings are the same.
Pilots have to factor in many things - the wind speed and direction, passenger and fuel load and the length of the runway before them.
Do you want the flaps right down as we land? What? Do you want the flaps right down as we land? Yeah, but after we touch down.
Okay.
A complicated formula provides the V ref indicating the safe landing speed.
Even in a crisis like this pilots have to reach for the manual.
Extending the flaps fully will help act as a brake once they touch down but to do it earlier could stress the air frame to breaking point.
What you have to remember is that the pilots weren't trained to handle a situation like this.
With the top of their airplane missing they became test pilots.
The aerodynamic effects of the airplane were drastically different than they were used to.
They were flying by the seat of their pants.
Aloha 243, wind now 0-5-0 at 20.
V ref 40 plus 30, flaps 1 through flaps 15.
120? Using her flight manual the first officer makes the complicated calculation that will give their correct landing speed.
- 152.
- Right.
The safe speed for landing, taking into account the length of Kahului's runway 2 is calculated to be 152 knots - 282km/h.
Get down.
SCREAMING As the airplane slows it becomes much harder to control and so the pilot has to make another crucial call.
Speeding up to keep control means he'll hit the runway faster than he should.
He gambles that the higher-speed landing is still the best option.
Our approach speed, I felt, was hot.
I mean we were coming in hot.
Don't ask me how many miles an hour it was 'cause I don't know.
But from other landings we were coming in fairly hot.
Crash rescue teams prepare themselves for a worst-case scenario.
At high speed and without the nose gear a crash landing followed by a catastrophic fuel fire now seems inevitable.
Under these conditions, the lack of a nose gear could have been a death sentence for everybody aboard this aircraft.
A Boeing 737 with 95 people on board has suffered an explosive decompression near the Hawaiian island of Maui.
It's still airborne but only just, with 35 square metres of fuselage missing from the Aloha plane.
As they prepare for an emergency landing, warning lights indicate that the forward landing gear has not deployed.
If so, the airplane will most likely crash and burn.
In the 12 horrifying minutes since the explosion some passengers are convinced they are not going to make it alive.
I thought it was going to go in the water and I was eaten by sharks.
And then we saw the mountain and I didn't think we would make it over.
I just knew we were going to crash into that mountain.
And then when we could tell we could see the airport, then I'd burn to death because the plane blew up when we hit the runway.
Suddenly the news the pilots have been praying for.
The gear is down.
Phone call the command, the gear is down.
Okay, thanks.
Aloha 243, just for your information, the gear appears down.
The gear appears down.
Want me to go to flaps 40, help you? No, on the ground.
The crew have had to make life-or-death decisions.
In the next few seconds they'll find out whether they're the right ones.
SCREAMING Michelle Honda cradles her injured colleague as the critical moment approaches.
Passengers comfort one another in what may be their last moments alive.
The woman that was sitting next to me, her husband was on the other side the next row up, she was next to me, and they were reaching their hands out and they were trying to touch fingers to say goodbye.
That was a really touching moment for me.
It's when I really knew I was gonna die 'cause they were saying goodbye.
HOWARD: What gave me comfort was knowing that my wife and my kids knew what I felt.
That was great comfort.
I didn't need to tell them anything further.
"I love you," or, you know, "I worry about you," because I felt that I had already said that.
Though the forward undercarriage has extended the crew still can't be certain whether it is locked in place or whether it will collapse on landing.
If it doesn't hold firm 40,000kg of airplane travelling at close to 320km/h will smash nose-down onto the tarmac.
- One reverse.
- Okay.
Thrust reverser.
Yes! Aloha 243, just shut it down where you are.
- Okay.
- Everything's fine.
The gear did it.
The fire trucks are on the way.
Okay.
Shut it down.
- Shut it off? - Yep.
Oh, God.
(passengers applaud) SIRENS WAIL In this extraordinary video captured moments after landing, the amount of damage the airplane suffered is difficult to comprehend.
An emergency evacuation of passengers who escaped injury has just been completed.
Some injured passengers have still to be helped from the plane.
How it flew for those 13 terrifying minutes seems astonishing.
Captain Bob Schornstheimer is thanked by passengers who just minutes before had expected to die.
The tension is released.
"Yes, baby!" That's all I said.
The pilot did a tremendous job.
Patricia Aubrey hugs her heroine Michelle Honda.
PATRICIA: I was crying and, of course, everybody was traumatised looking at the plane and looking at the people bleeding.
And I justI kept touching myself going, "I'm here.
"I can't believe I'm still alive.
" Her last-minute impulse to switch seats saves her from injury, maybe from death.
Something was telling me not to sit there because I didn't have a good reason to move, you know? My guardian angel was tapping me on the shoulder and telling me to move.
A final desperate headcount by Michelle Honda confirms the crew's worst fears.
CB Lansing, the veteran of 37 years flying for this airline, is missing.
A sea search begins in the area of ocean where the explosion took place.
Neither body nor wreckage are found.
Jane Sato-Tomita has started to recover.
Seven passengers are seriously hurt.
The worst injury - a skull fracture.
But how have the rest survived? At the moment of decompression it was just their seatbelts which made the difference between life and death.
It went poof! A loud noise, and it just, the whole thing come apart, and I personally thought we were all gone.
We were, the passengers, all had our seatbelts fastened, most of us, evidentially, or we'd have lost a lot more.
But there's something else.
At the most critical moment Maui's notorious high winds died away.
I was amazed to see front of the fuselage missing.
What was so funny about it was when he came in, had no wind.
Believe me - if he did have that wind, the aircraft wouldn't have made it.
It would have split into two pieces.
It's a miracle.
It's very much a miracle.
GREG: This is one of the most remarkable flying events in history.
No airplane has ever landed with this amount of damage.
The only thing that was holding the forward section cockpit to the rest of the fuselage were the floor beams.
Basically they were hanging by a thread.
From a close study of the fuselage, crash investigators tried to determine how the airplane structure remained in one piece.
The critical factor proves to be the precise location of the explosion.
The thing that saved them was that because the damage was across the top of the airplane, as the nose tried to bend down these members through here are in tension and it kept them in line and kept them straight.
So, even though it was almost ready to break off, the structure was still strong enough here to keep it together.
If this damage had been along the bottom and the nose was trying to bend down this way this structure, a similar structure, would have been in compression, and it would've buckled and the nose would've certainly come off.
So it's fortunate that the damage was across the top.
How does the roof of a jet airliner simply blow away? The US National Transportation Safety Board - NTSB - is tasked with discovering what happened.
Investigators pull the airplane's records, something like an automobile's service history, and suspicion falls right away on the airplane itself.
The best evidence for what happened, the missing fuselage section, is now lying at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean but by carefully piecing together the clues they do have the investigators hope to solve one of the most spectacular accidents of all time.
In the 38 years since it launch in 1967, more than 5,000 737s were sold.
Somewhere in the world a 737 takes off every five seconds.
The accident airplane was No.
152 off the production line, delivered in May 1969.
The airplane was designed for a 20-year service life and 75,000 flights.
This one had exceeded that number, though many were of short duration.
Its fuselage was under constant stress because of pressurisation.
The fuselage of the airplane is actually breathing, it expands and contracts depending on altitude.
When it's on the ground, it's in a contracted status.
When it's at altitude 24,000 feet, the fuselage expands so the airplane is constantly cycling.
That's pressurisation.
That will weaken the structure over a long period of time.
Given the history of this airplane, being very a high-cycle airplane, that probably had something to do with weakening the structure of the fuselage.
With thousands of 737s taking to the skies each day, investigators need to be certain what made this one burst apart.
An Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 bursts apart in midair over Hawaii.
After 13 extraordinary minutes in the air, it makes an emergency landing on the island of Maui.
Investigators need to discover what caused this spectacular incident.
In Washington DC, Jim Wildey is one of the NTSB team who worked the case.
His expertise as a metallurgist proves crucial.
I got a call about 2am, in the middle of the night, from my boss and there had been an accident in Hawaii.
They were putting the team together.
I hopped on a plane and went to Hawaii.
He takes samples from the remaining fuselage, and back in the lab discovers something barely visible to the naked eye - hairline cracks like this beside the holes where rivets had been.
Figuring out how those cracks came to be there means going back to basics, to the way the Boeing 737 was put together.
Airplanes are built from many separate panels.
Where the overlap, they're bonded together by a powerful adhesive known as epoxy.
Rivets hold the panels tight together while the epoxy sets hard.
On the Aloha airplane, there's telltale discolouration inside the overlapping joints.
Here is the vital clue.
You can see now where the dark material is the epoxy that was used to bond the two layers of the lap joint together.
The white material you see here is corrosion damage of the aluminium fuselage skin.
So the original intent was the stress that's trying to pull one skin away from the other skin piece, the stresses would go through the bonding, not through the rivets.
Of course, as this thing becomes disbonded now the rivets themselves are loaded, and especially this top row of rivets.
This is the row of rivets, we think, that had the fatigue cracking in it that led to the eventual opening of the roof structure on the Aloha 737 airplane.
The files reveal that Boeing warned airlines, including Aloha, of problems with some early 737s.
If the epoxy isn't applied at exactly the right temperature, if the panels have moisture or dirt on them, the bonding can fail.
In warnings and service bulletins, some issued over 15 years earlier, Boeing spells out the danger.
The Hawaii climate with humid and salt-laden air helps corrosion to occur, but instead of grounding airplanes for nose-to-tail examination Aloha has inspectors make occasional checks, often at night, when those on duty are least alert, working under artificial light.
Those tiny cracks escaped detection.
GREG: These cracks go unrepaired and now you have an airplane that is a ticking time bomb.
There are other problems.
Boeing service bulletins and what are called Air Worthiness Directives issued by the Federal Aviation Administration are often difficult to understand.
GREG: Air Worthiness Directives are very complex and read like a legal document.
Aloha needed to have someone who could read that document and interpret it into plain English for the mechanics, the wrench turners.
That never happened.
An airplane that has been worked so hard, serviced by mechanics who don't fully understand the briefings, is a recipe for disaster.
Investigators now believe they know why the airplane burst open but they don't yet know how.
I was flying back from Hawaii to Los Angeles and while I was in the air I got a message that we needed to interview this passenger who had apparently seen a crack as she was getting on the accident flight.
You saw something as you got on this airplane which you pointed out to your mate Cynthia Johnson.
- Yeah, Cynthia.
- Yeah.
Talk me through it.
What did you see? What I saw was to the right of the door where the paint was white .
.
well, it was a crack.
It was likenot a hole exactly but the metal on top had come away from the metal below.
I was going to tell the flight attendant, but they were busy and we had to take our seats.
You figured they know what they're doing.
It's their airplane.
I didn't want to make a fuss or anything.
No, no.
Absolutely.
The witness saw cracking in this area and we found fatigue cracking back in here so this is the line where the fatigue cracking joined up.
One piece came down this way and folded off, the other piece went across the top and came off to the right side.
But something still doesn't make sense.
Boeing designed the 737 and other of its aircraft so that this should never happen.
Every 10 inches along the airplane are what are called tear straps inside the fuselage to strengthen it.
If a tear begins it should only reach the next strap before shooting off at a 90 degree angle.
Though there's a hole in the aircraft it acts like a safety valve.
The purpose of the tear strip is to confine any kind of rip or tear in the fuselage skin to a 10-inch square, basically.
If you allow it to propagate beyond this 10-inch square you could then compromise larger sections of the fuselage and cause a blow-out.
The 10-inch square allows a controlled decompression and confines any structural damage to a very small area.
So why has the safety valve failed here? The NTSB believe there were so many cracks in the fuselage that they simply joined together, running right through the tear straps.
The Aloha airplane was kind of unique in a couple of ways.
It was operated with very short flights, so you had large numbers of these pressurisation cycles and stress was going on and off on these rivet locations.
And secondly, with the disbonding, all this stress is now going through the rivets, and that led to the linking up of these cracks and then the roof coming off the airplane.
But is that the final answer on what happened to Flight 243? A new theory claims to shed fresh light on those dramatic events.
Matt Austin is an engineer who lives in Honolulu.
The story of Flight 243 both appals and fascinates him.
MATT: I flew very regularly on Aloha Airlines.
I'd been on that plane about a week before it actually lost the roof.
You could tell that something was loose in the airplane.
Like when you're in an old car and you hit a bump, you can hear the rattles in it that you won't hear in a new aircraft.
In this case, when the aircraft landed there would be noises and rattles you wouldn't hear on the newer aircraft.
He begins his own investigation, scrutinising the 4,000 pages of evidence and photographs gathered during the official inquiry.
I am an expert in explosion dynamics and how pressure vessels explode, what causes them to explode, which way the cracks run as they're coming apart.
In the case of the Aloha accident, the main focus from the aeronautical industry was they were looking at it as an airplane structural failure, whereas I analysed it from the point of view of a pressure vessel failure.
As he reviews the evidence, one question keeps recurring - why is CB Lansing sucked out of the aircraft and not her colleague, Jane Sato-Tomita? Jane was further forward than CB at the crucial moment.
Jane was at row 2.
CB was at row 5.
The NTSB believes the roof separation began near row 3.
Passenger testimony gathered shortly after the incident suggests that CB Lansing was sucked upwards and to the left but not forward.
I was on the aisle, on the right, so I look up from my magazine and I see a pair of legs go up and out on the left.
Just back of first-class.
From where I was, if the nose was 12, this is at 11, yeah? Forensic evidence suggests another possible scenario.
Michael Sweet, an ex cop, is now a specialist in blood splatter analysis.
By studying bloodstains at crime scenes, he can help put a killer behind bars or free the innocent.
He examines official photographs of the 737 fuselage.
This is a large photograph of the left side of the airplane.
The front would be in this location.
There's awhat we suspect to be a bloodstain pattern on theright beside the window, right here.
Could this bloodstain be where CB Lansing's head impacted with the outside of the fuselage? The analyst believe so.
The fact that there were bloodstains on the side of this airplane suggests to me that the blood source in this case was momentarily trapped when it came into contact with the side of the airplane.
If the flight attendant in this case was ejected outside of a gaping hole I would expect her to disappear almost immediately and not leave any bloodstains on the side of the airplane.
This analysis suggests only that she was trapped but without explaining how or why.
Matt Austin believes he has the answer.
On 28 April 1988, a Boeing 737, owned by Aloha Airlines in Hawaii, suffers an explosive decompression in midair.
Amazingly it lands safely with the loss of one crew member.
Investigators blame metal fatigue due to poor maintenance.
But a new and controversial theory has emerged challenging at least part of the chain of events.
What if a safety hole has opened up as it was designed to do but directly above the flight attendant? Matt Austin believes CB Lansing is sucked into the safety hole, momentarily blocking it.
All of the air that's trying to escape has no place to go so it built up a huge pressure spike and that's what blew the roof off the top of the airplane.
What he's describing is known as a fluid hammer.
In scientific terms, air is fluid, as is water.
Here's a simply demonstration in a bathtub.
The water is in fact escaping through the drain.
As we move the drain plug back down toward the hole, it will immediately slam shut and create a force which is a simple example of a fluid hammer.
He believes this phenomenon, on a giant scale, caused the accident.
It's very tragic, but if we don't look at the forensic evidence that's left then we won't understand exactly what caused the explosive decompression and possibly prevent a future occurrence.
The NTSB say that the fluid hammer theory is valid scientifically but for them the evidence still points to something simpler, a virtually simultaneous failure in the airplane's many weak spots.
The Safety Board's investigations are never really closed.
We always will take into account any new information that comes out.
I believe, in the case of the Aloha accident we have not changed our probable cause and we're still are sticking with the probable cause as we determined back in 1988.
Since the crucial physical evidence was never found, what happened on board at the precise moment of explosion will probably never be known.
Aloha Airlines management took most of the blame for their poor maintenance regime.
The NTSB demanded that the Federal Aviation Administration do a much better job enforcing maintenance standards.
Boeing had already improved their manufacturing process to prevent the adhesive from becoming so easily contaminated.
What happened on Flight 243 made flying safer.
Soon after, Congress passed the Aviation Safety Research Act.
This accident had a very profound effect on the aviation industry and the way we look at ageing airplanes, old aircraft.
We changed the way we monitor how they age, the way we inspect them and, of course, how we manufacture them.
We use different processes.
This was a very critical accident for aviation history.
Those 13 terrifying minutes also left their impact on the survivors of Flight 243.
I had to go through a healing process.
I took fear of flying classes.
The old saying, "You fall off a horse and you get back on it," is very accurate, but it's a lot tougher to actually do it.
HELICOPTER WHIRRS Patricia Aubrey had to find a way of dealing with the memories also.
Her way was to revisit the same piece of airspace where the terror unfolded.
PATRICIA: I would go flying with my psychologist.
You go through what they call desensitisation where you confront your fear and you just do it so many times that you can do it without having a bad reaction.
Before that happenedZ if something bad happened to me I'd go, "I hate life," but I don't hate life.
I can deal with it.
Bring it on.
I'll take care of it.
I'd much rather be alive.
There's one further legacy of that fateful day.
The ocean never did surrender the body of CB Lansing.
Instead a memorial garden honouring the veteran flight attendant was planted at Honolulu Airport beneath the big Hawaiian sky where she spent the better part of her life and where it was so suddenly ended.