Aloha airlines flight 243

Template:Air Disasters

## 1. Aloha Airlines flight 243

Aloha airline's one of the most advanced jet liner at that time, a Boeing 737, was built and delivered to Aloha airlines in 1969. It was one of the most earliest versions of a 737, a Boeing 737-200 series. It was delivered as a new aircraft, with the name "King Kalaniopuu". However, after many operations, it was sold to Air California, and changed its registration to N728AL. After it retired at Air California fleet and returned to Aloha, it was re-named as "Queen *Liliuokalani"* after the Hawaii's last queen's name. Just before the accident, the aircraft had over 35,496 flight hours, with the same airframe. The plane flew over seas over 90,000 times, and operated as twice as many time it should even fly.

## 2. Accident

Aloha Airlines flight 243 took off from Hilo at April 28, 1988 13:25 HST, bound for Honolulu. Nothing was missing in start up and takeoff checklist, along with the exterior of the aircraft. After the takeoff, the airliner reached its cruising attitude of 24000 feet, which was normal for a Boeing 737. however, around 13:50 HST, pilots reported a noise behind the cockpit. When they turned around, thats when they noticed the situation was far immense than they thought. The whole roof were flown away, and there were only half of the roof remaining. The flight attendant was un-contactable so they were unable to report the passenger situation. Luckly, all passengers were remained seated and there were no passenger casualties. However, a 58-year-old flight attendant Clarabelle "C.B." Lansing, were thrown out of the aircraft when the roof dropout. Her body were never recovered. 8 passengers suffered severe injuries due to wind and flying objects - but luckly they survived.

 File:Aloha 243 remains .jpg
Judging that Aloha Airlines flight 243 has entered an emergency, pilots reduce altitude through a sharp descent and contact the Kahului control center to obtain landing permission. They face two problems in the Final Approach, one with no way to check if the front wheel came down, and the other with an abnormality in the left engine. The pilots confirmed that the front wheels did not turn on when they lowered the gear. However, the situation ended when the controller reported that all three gears had come down. However, during the final landing grounding process, the left engine was damaged and turned off, and pilots who barely landed the aircraft slowed down using reverse propulsion devices. All passengers were successfuly evacuated after the landing however, there were no enough ambulances and paramedics to move the passengers to the hospital. There were only two at the time of the disaster, and many injured passengers were moved by a Tour bus. The Aircraft was damaged beyond repair and was scrapped at the airport.

## 3. Investigation.

### Overall investigation

Many cracks were found in the fuselage of the Aloha 243, which flew more than 89,000 kilometers. At the time, Boeing was conducting regular inspections on all aircraft, and aloha airlines not only did not follow the regulations, but also tried to cover them with sandpaper and paint, even though they detected cracks. The NTSB and FAA pointed out that using a method of using layers to create a fuselage was the first cause of the accident. The Boeing Aviation Safety Center informed Aloha airlines that there was a problem with epoxy, the glue that attaches overlapping plates, but no action was taken. At the time, the adhesion portion of Aloha 243 was completely off. Failure to replace epoxy can increase the impact of rivets and lead to fatigue destruction. Rivets, the aircraft's fixed nails, are severely impacted during the flight. If it is not checked for a long time, cracks become difficult to detect.

### Problems with the Epoxy

Boeing used something called cold bond to adhere to the rivet of the 737 which was problematic in many ways, with storage difficulties that had to be immersed in dry ice just before application and situations where rivets could not be fixed well because they were not applied uniformly. The problem with the cold bond has already been reported to the public in 1970 and Boeing has also come up with measures to inform Aloha Airlines in advance to check and cope with it, but Aloha Airlines has also ignored it.

### Aloha Airlines' maintenance issues

Aloha Airlines adopted a very unique maintenance method, but as it rolled the aircraft to the maximum extent a day, there was not enough time to maintain it. So, the maintenance was to the extent that a ground mechanic inspected the aircraft with a headlamp, and in fact, a close inspection was so negligible that it was conducted seven years before the accident. This was never a maintenance method that could detect cracks, and it was even more inappropriate for aircraft that more than doubled the proper number of take-off and landing of the Boeing 737.