A Plane Lost Its Roof At 24,000ft - This Is What Happened Next

On April 28, 1988, Aloha Airlines Flight 243 took off from Hawaii's Hilo International Airport. The flight was traveling to Honolulu less than an hour away. The weather was glorious. Conditions were optimal, but just a few minutes after takeoff, a huge boom suddenly shook the entire

plane

without any warning as the

roof

covering the first class cabin was explosively ripped off, passengers and flight crew panicking. Would they be absorbed by the big blue sky? Could they make an emergency landing? Would the rest of the

plane

break up at any moment if you wanted to? To find out

what

happened

, stay tuned as we take off into

this

terrifying story and many more like it.

Aboard Flight 243 on that fateful day there were 89 passengers and six crew members, including Captain Robert Schornstheimer and First Officer Madeline Thompson, together they had more than 10,000 hours of flight experience with

this

model of airplane the boeing 737 the airplane was 19 years old approximately 10 years before the end of its expected useful life and that same day it had made three round-trip flights from honolulu to hilo maui and kauai nothing unusual was noted on pre-departure inspection and the airplane had recently passed a Boeing service bulletin and airworthiness directive by two separate inspectors on paper, the airplane was in top condition and ready to fly However, when a passenger was boarding, he looked up. on the boarding bridge and noticed a crack in the plane's fuselage about halfway between the plane door and the bridge cowling, he assumed that the staff must have known about it and therefore did not say anything to any of the boarding personnel. ground or personnel after all aircraft pre-flight checks were passed. took off without incident the plane began its climb going higher and higher while the passengers were still shown the seat belt signs while the pilots began to level the plane at around 24,000 feet, that's when they heard a boom, a Huge cacophonous eruption followed by the loud sound of wind.

First Officer Tompkins' head was thrown back and he saw pieces of debris like foam insulation floating in the cockpit. It was then that the pilots looked back and noticed that the entrance door to the cabin was missing, but where the first class

roof

was. It should have been all they could see now was the blue sky in first class, passengers clinging to their seats in complete terror having witnessed a small section of the left side of the plane suddenly break apart, causing an explosive decompression of the cabin. . and 300 mile per hour winds that tear off the roof planes now have cabin air systems that control pressurization airflow and temperature the higher in the atmosphere a plane flies, the less oxygen there is and the colder it gets, for What these systems are essential to ensure that passengers do not suffocate or freeze during flight when explosive decompression occurs, although these systems stop working, which is why oxygen masks fall from the ceiling on passenger planes. ;

However, on Flight 243, an 18-foot section of the plane's roof and sides were torn off. Above the passenger's head along with their oxygen masks, fortunately they were still strapped to their seats, but the cabin crew who had been there had to hold on to anything they could to avoid being swept away, but tragically one did not make it in. . On that occasion, the number one flight attendant, Clarabelle Lansing, was immediately dragged out of the hole that appeared in the left side of the plane. Stewardess number two, Michelle Honda, was thrown to the ground, but she managed to crawl up and down the aisle to check on passengers and try to stay safe.

They calmed down with the cockpit still largely intact The pilots put on their own oxygen masks They quickly realized that all their controls felt loose The plane was spinning left and right threatening to fall from the sky at any second Tompkins turned his transponder into an emergency code to notify Honolulu that they needed to make an emergency landing on nearby Maui, but the cabin noise was so loud that none of their transmissions could be heard and the pilots couldn't even communicate with the flight attendants. listen to each other, so they resorted to hand signals. They began an emergency descent without wasting any time, falling rapidly at one point falling at more than 4,100 feet per minute.

The ideal descent speed for airliners traveling above ten thousand feet is around three thousand feet per minute to avoid a steep or uncontrollable slope. fall, but considering the already uncontrollable situation of flight 243, they only needed to land as quickly as possible, they finally fell below 14,000 feet. Tompkins was able to reach Maui's emergency channel and requested an emergency landing along with medical equipment for

what

he assumed would be many casualties and deaths. Maui began preparations at the Kahului airport when first-class passengers began suffocating from the lack of air. oxygen when they reached below ten thousand feet. Captain Schoensteimer slowed the aircraft in accordance with air traffic control speed limitations at this time. altitude, they could at least breathe and began gradually turning the plane toward the runway while slowing to 170 knots, about 195 miles per hour, he noticed the plane becoming less responsive upon landing.

I needed to fly at least 130 knots, about 50 miles per hour. an hour slower, but he had no choice: either slow down and lose control of the plane in the air or reach the runway and risk crashing in a super-fast landing at a dizzying 170 knots. He then ordered Tompkins to lower the landing gear. The main gear light flashed green, but an extension light was not green, the nose gear was not down, they manually overridden the computer to release it, but the light refused to come on, they tried one more time and lowered the handle override light, but the light still wasn't on, normally they could check if it was down through a scope, but it was blocked and, rather than waste time trying to clear it, the captain insisted on landing the plane immediately if he messed up when the front landing gear was on.

They weren't actually down, they were going to hit the runway at almost 200 miles per hour with nothing to stabilize the front of the plane, it would be a guaranteed accident, but they had no choice but to pray. Fortunately, the landing gear indicator lights went out. be malfunctioning, the landing gear was in fact down and 13 minutes after Schwarzensteimer and Tompkins' decompression explosive hit the runway and successfully landed, which greeted emergency services at Kahului Airport left everyone gasping, the plane had been torn apart like a sardine can of '89. the passengers and crew 65 of them were injured eight seriously and one carabelle lansing fatally plane two was damaged beyond repair last time i checked airliners like this They're not meant to become convertibles, so what

happened

here?

Well, normally the skin of an airplane fuselage is about 2.5 millimeters thick, so about the same thickness as two credit cards is made of metal sheets that on the Boeing 737 were made in panels of about four meters long and two meters wide to join them, holes are drilled in the edges and they are joined by a series of rivets, obviously the skin is weaker at these overlapping joints, which is where the researchers began to suspect the hole had appeared original. They then interviewed the passenger, who claimed to have seen a crack in the fuselage before takeoff. The area she pointed out was the exact same area that investigators believed the original hole appeared before high winds ripped off the rest of the roof, so how had not one but two different inspectors missed this crack?

It turned out that it kept the cost of inspecting older Boeing planes. Until the Federal Aviation Administration only made fuselage inspections mandatory along the two most critical joints, inspections of the other joints were left to the discretion of each airline even though the aircraft had operated for 35,496 hours or four years in a salty and highly corrosive overseas environment aloha Airlines I hadn't thought it was necessary to inspect every last joint. It was this combination of complacency in maintenance that ultimately led to the terrifying experience of Flight 243. It was such a catastrophic failure in maintenance standards that American regulators overhauled the inspection process for all older aircraft in service.

A task force was established to ensure air capacity. Mandatory corrosion control programs were developed, and if a defect was found in an aircraft, a re-inspection of the entire fleet could be ordered. It was a huge and expensive task, but it was too late for Clarabelle Lansing, unfortunately her body was damaged. She was never found, but it could have been worse if not for the incredibly brave actions of the crew, they were rightfully hailed as heroes. However, they wouldn't be the last crew to experience something so terrifying due to poor maintenance practices before we take a look.

In another amazing story that I would say is even more shocking, be sure to hit the like and subscribe buttons below. All set, then get ready because I promise you won't believe the

next

story, British Airways Flight 5390. 10th of June. In 1990, a British Airways flight from Birmingham to Malaga departed with 81 passengers and six crew aboard a Bac 111 aircraft. Co-pilot Alastair Atchison and Captain Timothy Lancaster were experienced aviators who had accumulated almost 2,200 flying hours in BA. -111 and had no problems during takeoff at 17,000 feet, they loosened their seat belts and informed the cabin crew that they could prepare for meal service.

Stewardess Nigel Ogden entered the cockpit 27 minutes into the flight to ask what the pilots wanted for breakfast, but then without any warning the unimaginable happened. Two of the windshield panels on the left side of the cockpit suddenly exploded and a rapid decompression shook the plane. All loose objects that were not tied down were sent hurtling through the cabin, including Captain Lancaster. His body was horribly sucked out of the lead plane but his feet became trapped in the control column. The explosion also ripped the cockpit door off its hinges and slammed it into the center console, blocking essential instruments because the captain's feet had dragged.

The forward control column the plane's autopilot disengaged and the plane went into a tailspin without a second to lose air, steward Ogden jumped forward and grabbed the captain's waist just in time to prevent him from being dragged out. As the pressure equalized, the wind began to roar causing a tornado of debris into the cabin. and holding captain lancaster against the top of the fuselage, ogden held the captain to save his life, but co-pilot atchison was unable to reach the essential controls as the plane descended, he sent out a mayday call, but due to the strong wind he could not could.

Let's say if the controllers had heard it the plane began to plummet through one of the busiest airspaces in the country two more flight attendants made their way into the cockpit grabbing the captain and stomping on the door to unlock the essential systems in This point Ogden was Suffering from a lack of oxygen and freezing due to the icy 350 mile per hour winds and feeling like his arms were about to be torn off, unable to hold the captain any longer, the other two air stewards grabbed the captain's feet as they made the co- The pilot regained control of the plane and stopped to make a slower descent.

Captain Lancaster's body began to slide to the left of the plane, leaving his face pressed against the window inside the cabin. Everyone's heart sank. He didn't seem to have done it. If they briefly considered letting his body go, but Ogden immediately rejected the idea on principle, there was also the possibility that he would be sucked into one of the engines, which could bring down the entire plane, so Atchison began the unenviable task of shooting down two - Piloting the plane alone, the charts and checklists had also been erased from the cockpit, it just couldn't get any worse.

He managed to contact air traffic control, who directed him to Southampton Airport, an airport he was completely unfamiliar with and trusted the controller. Alone, without his or his captain's checklists, he guided the plane down and somehow made a landing.safe emergency. The 81 passengers, who saw their lives flash before their eyes, disembarked without a single injury, although it was not such a happy story for Captain Lancaster. He had been slammed against the outside of the plane in temperatures as low as -1.4 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes, there was no hope of his survival, and yet when paramedics removed his body, he opened his eyes, he was alive despite his terrible experience, he suffered little else.

For him to get frostbite, some bruises and a couple of minor fractures after a brief period in hospital, he returned to duty just five months later, was in a word miraculous. Now I'm not an aviation expert, but I'm pretty sure airplane windshields aren't. I didn't mean to go out like that, so what the hell happened? Well, an extensive investigation discovered that a few days before the fateful flight, the plane had undergone a routine service on a list of things to fix, needing a new captain's side windshield, shift maintenance. The manager decided to do the work himself.

It had been a few years since he last replaced one, and yet he didn't look up the procedure in the airplane manual. After removing the 90 bolts holding the windshield in place, he noticed that they were a little corroded. He decided to replace them as well, however the replacements he used were too narrow, only by 0.02 inches, but enough to cause a problem, as he soon realized, without checking the work, that the plane was returned to service for their

next

trip, flight 5390. Once in the sky, the pressure pulled the narrow bolts out of their holes, bursting the replaced windshields and nearly costing the captain his life.

It was an incident that arose from an aircraft maintenance culture of getting the job done on time that depended on speed. Judgment decisions and basic safety breaches ignored As a result of the investigation findings radical changes were made to the way British Airways maintenance engineers worked. Shift managers were no longer allowed to self-certify their own work. Engineers were to receive regular training and all were to recertify their qualifications every few years, this would ensure that any unsafe habits acquired were quickly abandoned and that all pilots were safe in the knowledge that they would be flying inside their aircraft rather than on top of it from now on. onwards, Delta Flight 1425 is not just an explosive or rapid decompression that can cause pilots to scramble to make an emergency landing On June 8, 2019, Delta Airlines Flight 1425 took off.

From Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta to Baltimore with 148 passengers on board, the one-hour and a half daily trip was made on Delta's McDonnell Douglas MD-88 plane normally without incident, but not today, shortly after takeoff, several passengers They heard a loud bang. At first they thought it might be turbulence, but then they started to smell something strange: it was smoke, not the kind you smell like from a cigarette, but the strong and terrifying kind that comes from burning metal and little by little it filled up. the cabin. Flight attendants worked quickly to keep all passengers safe. He calmed down and informed the captain.

That's when the plane suddenly slowed down, began to heat up, and air circulation was cut off. That's when passenger Logan Webb looked out the window and saw this. Do you know what that thing is that dances dangerously in the engine? that's the nose cone of the engine, somehow in mid-flight it detached from the center shaft of the plane's engine and was rattling against the fan blades and that exposed red hot center doesn't look very good either. Passengers were told to prepare for an emergency. It landed and miraculously the plane landed safely in Raleigh, North Carolina, no passengers or crew were injured and everyone was safely transferred to another flight.

The airline initially said they made the emergency landing due to a possible problem with one of the engines. I'm not a pilot, but I'm pretty sure seeing a nose cone detached like that in mid-flight is a definite problem. Still, aviation expert John Cox said the plane wasn't in that much danger because all planes are designed to be able to. fly. With one engine inoperative, Delta has yet to reveal how this was allowed to happen, but later revealed that they were planning to scrap all MD-88s in their fleet by 2020. Wow, I wonder why Flybe Flight 1284 made a hard landing On a large airliner with hundreds of people on board it seems pretty scary, but on smaller planes it's another level of scary and anyone who was aboard flybeflight 1284 on February 23, 2017 will probably agree with the flight that It took off from Edinburgh, Scotland, and landed at Schiphol.

Amsterdam was a Dash 8 turboprop powered aircraft, so there were no jet engines with dropping cones here, although that wasn't the problem with this flight, after a 90 minute takeoff delay due to bad weather, the plane and its 59 passengers and six crew members I finally had the runway in sight, but it turned out to be a tremendously bumpy ride. Did you see that the moment the plane landed, the landing gear on the right side collapsed? Oh, those passengers were so lucky that the blade didn't break and fly away. It went through the fuselage when it hit the runway, fortunately none of the passengers or crew were injured, although the airport called emergency services just in case it took over a year for the Dutch safety board to get to the bottom of the collapse and they finally released In a nearly 50 page investigation document, it turned out that there was a faulty proximity sensor that had not been detected and a slight fault in the main landing gear yoke, this is the bit attached to the wheels, but the fault was had acquired when the plane was first built, they simply didn't detect it until it was too late, combined with the faulty sensor and the harsh conditions at the time of shipment, when the plane landed, the main landing gear strut suffered too much. twisted and collapsed, luckily it only resulted in a landing that was a bit wonky, although if you ask me any landing you can walk away from is a good landing, having to make an emergency ground landing on a passenger plane is no easy feat.

In April 2021, the Cocoa Beach air show in Florida was in full swing, hundreds of planes of all times took off from the nearby Patrick Space Force Base in their thousands. of spectators perched on the beach, but when a World War II TBM Avenger began flying overhead, something didn't sound right, the single-engine plane suffered a sudden mechanical failure on its single engine, forcing it to land in the water . Miraculously, no one rowed. The water was hit and fortunately landing in shallow water meant the pilot was not at risk of drowning. They turned out okay, but the plane was not so lucky that it was pulled off the beach and towed back to base for what experts estimate will be years. of repairs, the plane is better than the pilot, if you ask me, an illicit landing is now not just mechanical failures that can force planes to make emergency landings back in July 2020, a group of boys were traveling through Poliuk in the Mexican state of Quintana. roo when They heard something strange above them, a helicopter shot, what was happening up there.

They kept the camera rolling just in case, which is good because I don't think anyone would have believed what they saw next without the footage as they turned onto the road. Suddenly they saw this crazy scene, in front of them in the middle of the road was a private plane on fire, according to reports from the scene, the helicopter from earlier had been shooting at the plane that was suspected of transporting narcotics, this was what forced them. had to make an emergency landing once it landed on the highway the occupants of the plane set fire to the multi-million dollar plane before getting into a nearby truck and fleeing the mexican defense ministry later stated that they found the truck abandoned with more than 200 kilos of what they believe is nasty salt spread in and around it, that's worth about $60 million.

Oh wow, these guys must have been in a hurry to leave so much behind, but why did they set the plane on fire? They're trying to make it look like they crash landed, maybe they'll burn any evidence, what do you think? Let me know in the comments. Small plane. Big road. When you're driving on the highway, there are some things you really don't want. see roadwork signs ahead a slow hauler trying to pass another equally slow hauler a plane landing and moving traffic wait what was the last one back in april 2020 matthew leclerc was traveling on busy highway 40 in quebec, canada, when he saw a small plane traveling dangerously low above him, it was a little strange, but he definitely did not expect what happened next, yes, without warning, the plane fell and landed in the middle of moving traffic if this pilot had forgotten his glasses and confused the road with the landing strip, well, It turns out that the pilot of the small plane had just taken off from a nearby airport when he started having engine problems.

He tried to return but the problem quickly worsened. He contacted the air traffic controller, who suggested he land at the airport. road below him, emergency services were called and luckily no one was hurt, it could have been a different story if he had landed in the oncoming lanes, if you weren't afraid of flying before I bet you are now . Of these emergency landings, do you think it was the most dramatic? Have you ever been involved in one? Let me know in the comments below and thanks for watching.