I am a flight attendant for Hawaiian airlines and was flying interisland that day and saw that aircraft on the tarmac the day it happend ...very moving !
The Crew did an amazing job keeping this from being far worse than it was. Sad that even one person was sucked out and lost her life, again it's amazing that with the damage this Aircraft suffered more people didn't suffer the same fate! I have a lot of respect for you and all who do your job, when the routine becomes the unexpected and life's are in Danger, it's people like you who makes the Difference to the passengers. To you and all in your profession, Thank You!
Agreed. Cabin crew are an amazing bunch of people. I worked at LBA for a while and got to know some. All were funny, wise and TOTALLY dedicated. A huge thank you to all cabin crew out there.
My friend John was sitting in that section, the moon roof section. He was taken off on a stretcher with a head wound. He will be helping me out this Saturday, he could’ve been dead in 1988. Ironically he was then working on Oahu and commuting to work. He still does this every week.
It would be so nice if you all did a you tube together. I don't know how anyone can fly sfter that. I've flown in the past but have made peace with not flying again. I guess it's not that important for me to see the world. I wish he would talk about overcoming that
I was in the Army flying helicopters in Hawaii when this happened. We landed next to the aircraft the next day after it happened while refueling in Maui. You cannot imagine how bad the damage was...there is no way that flight should have survived.
Thought Experiment: Can you imagine the stewardess simply standing/walking in that aisle and she simultaneously BLINKS and in that blink she hears Boom next thing She feels being blasted/enected and weightless & it takes her maybe 5-10 seconds see and process what just happened meanwhile she is flying through the air everything blowing around her she looks around looks up in freefall sees the plane above her casually flying at the same altitude sbove her like all she knows is AHHHHHH ! Looks down like AHHHHH! falling from 24,000 ft she has time to process all this but she MAY EVEN THINK THIS IS A DREAM THIS IS A DREAM! IM DREAMING. And yeah. What a fucking way to go. That being so spontaneous you would have to be thinking that this is a fucking nightmare its a dream its not real no way How could i have just ejected i lolked up and saw the plane still flying. This event would put her in severe shock be so sure was she woukdve had to thought it was a dream. This is way to outrageous has to be a nightmare has to be a dream this isnt real. But she may have been screaming all the way down like HOW TF WTF , no one else fallong around her WTF.
MrX Ya i made alot of punctuation mistakes and didnt prooofread so may edit it but godamn imagine if you were her! it would’ve been too outrageous like no way wtf this has to be a dream how was i the only one instanteously shot out the plane is still flying at that altitude (she of course from her angle wouldn’t have seen the top had blown off). I dont get how that works- you said the atmosphere woukd be to thin making her heart stop? But Skydivers jump from those altitudes all the time without oxygen tanks-you can even watch some on youtube from that altitude. Plus lets say even if the air was too thin, she’s falling out of the sky at such an accelerated rate (she went with the top blowing off it propelled her out of the plane at an acceleration similar to a ejection-seat I know she was standing but im just trying to describe the pressure at which she got launched out of the plane. Think about how much faster she would be falling- in one minute of falling at that speed her altitude wouldve been low enough that even if the air was thin when she initiallygot catapulted thar she wouldn’t be at that altitude long enough where her heart stopped. It sucks knowing that and when she hits the ground or ocean(which is like cement at the speed she hits it) She will be in shock to even feel it its like someone hits you, you dont feel it right away but thing is when you know you’re aboutto be hit I find it hurts more than if you didnt know what happened. honestly id fall Headfirst so i didnt see it and B i wouldnt somehow sustain brutal damage to my internals but still somehow still be alive for a couple of minutes eventually dying. That would be the worst. _Note to self: If ejected from an airplane look for piles of hay To land on. if no piles of hay then lean forward and go out without feeling a godamn thing Lol_
@Skummeh yes, I heard that too. They believe the skin was ripped as designed, but the stewardess' was sucked into that hole, which resulted in fluid hammer. Which placed tremendous amount of force that ripped apart the whole fuselage. so, if she was not at that unfortunate location at the time, the plane would not have ripped apart like it did.
HG as an engineer in aircraft structures for over 30 years and counting, this incident changed how aging aircraft are maintained and inspected. Damage Tolerance Analysis became new regulatory requirement added to ultimate and fatigue analyses. DTA determines if cracks develop when will they become critical and what type of inspection and frequency of inspections will detect a crack before becoming critical.
I was a Flight Attendant and just started flying in March of 1988. In the years that followed we learned about details that of that accident at our Recurrent Safety Training and subsequent incidents on various airlines. The way the aircraft held together was miraculous. Sometimes knowing more is not always a good thing. The last part about the true role of Flight Attendants was great. I had some very serious emergencies and until it happens to you as a passenger you don't realize how important of a role we play.
I remember seeing the pictures of the aircraft on the nightly news with much of the fuselage missing and people still sitting strapped into their seats. Sometime later I learned a classmate of mine from Defiance College was indeed, Captain Robert! Good going Bob!
Unbelievable amazing story. Rockstar professionals turn the odds on the grim reaper. He came for them all but only got one, sadly enough. Great history telling content. Thank you sir.
The department of defense is specifically working on universal flying "robots" that watch the instruments and control inputs physically to fly any type of aircraft. With any pace of advancement in computer/robotic systems eventually humans will be surpassed in control, efficiency and emergency maneuvers. The day of blue collar and white collar working heros is winding down although it is not obvious in daily life.
@@greyrunner8565 in theory you're right, but in practice politics, public fear and unionized labor will slow the process beyond reason. In the end automation will be universal in most things, this has been known for decades, but acceptance will be a slow process.
It's a good idea in any case, because the plane can run into unexpected turbulence at any time. Unless you're leaving your seat it's a good idea to leave it on.
My father’s career was airline aircraft maintenance. I remember when this happened. (Few aviation “incidents” went without some discussion between us). As much as everyone wants to point the finger at Boeing for cold bonding etc, running most of the control cables through the flooring, and the strength of the floor itself, saved the lives of all but the one flight attendant.
@@GH-oi2jf yep- the cold bonding process was phased out due to production process reasons, but lessons learned from this flight protected those older, cold-bonded fuselages until they were all retired
A very similar incident you should cover is British Airways Flight 5390, a BAC-111 from Birmingham to Malaga suffered a explosive decompression when a cockpit window that wasn’t properly fixed in as a result of incorrect bolts separated causing the Captain to be sucked out of the plane. The flight attendants managed to hold the captain who was still outside in the cold temperatures. The Copilot managed to successfully land the plane in Southampton and the captain miraculously survived after what happened.
I actually seen the special on that flight! Yes it was a horrific.To think I only watched the video on it an you guys actually remember an some of you seen it!
When I was in Aviation we studied both the Aloha airlines incident and the BA5390 windshield blowout in a course called 'Human Factors in the workplace'. some very important lessons to be learned from both.
+DanielJ_00 A similar incident but very different causes. The BA incident was caused by errors in maintenance and stores procedures whereas the Aloha plane had suffered major structural failure due to corrosion caused by the salty atmosphere in the Hawaiian islands, despite being a low hours aircraft. The Aloha aircraft was scrapped where it landed, the BA aircraft and captain both remained in service with BA before respectively being retired to the aircraft graveyard and becoming a pilot instructor for BA. Amazingly, a few years before this happened a gentleman called David Gunson, an ex-RAF fighter pilot turned air traffic controller released a recording of his after-dinner speaking called "What Goes Up Might Come Down." It's very funny, and very instructive in the way flying and air traffic control operate (at least in the UK,) and in part of it he talks about, if I remember correctly, an incident from his RAF days when a pilot lost the canopy of his Lightning on a training flight. "It gets very breezy in a convertible at 300mph..." I'm sure the passengers of the Aloha flight would attest to that...
I lived in Seattle at the time, my roommate was a Boeing Electrical Engineer. He knew a bunch of the mechanical and structural engineers who were all shocked the plane held together and continued to fly. A story well told History Guy!
Excellent narrative! You’ve provided a very useful pointer for additional maintenance data as I write my dissertation on the maintenance of nuclear power plants. Thank you!
A suggestion for a future video. I hope you'll do a video about DE-418 USS Tabberer. During a typhoon in December 1944 she rescued 55 men from the sunken destroyer USS Hull. It is an amazing story, and history that deserves to be remembered as you say.
@@johnhull6363 me too! DD945 USS Hull was expended as a target after retirement and DD7 (USS Hull) and DD330 (USS Hull) both scrapped. DD350 USS Hull does need to be remembered!
I wish I'd gotten a more detailed account of the typhoons my father-in-law went through. Okinawa was one and I believe the Philippines area was a second. A Yard Minesweeper was the smallest ship in the Navy on the ocean. It bobbed up and down the huge waves like a fishing bobber. The poor guys on the destroyers and ships that size really got hit bad. They'd roll so easy in the troughs the funnels would touch the water. My F-I-L would think "its not going to recover" but then they'd slowly roll upright and onto the other side. Then the process would repeat itself for hours. But sometimes the destroyers continued rolling and never come upright again. What a sick feeling to watch. I can't even imagine what those guys went through. A friend was a helmsman on the USS Coral Sea off Vietnam when a typhoon hit. Some waves were so big they didn't splash over the flight deck but the deck plowed into the side of the wave. I know how big that Coral Sea was and no way can I fathom a storm like that.
I don’t recall if it was a typhoon or just a real bad spot of weather but one time when my Marine artillery unit was on a deployment aboard LST, USS San Bernadino I believe, which is a flat bottom ship, we were in heavy seas where the swells would be over the top of our ship and especially so when we were in the trough. I remember sticking my arm out to try touching the wall of water as we would roll into it. That was an amazing feeling and sure did make one feel insignificant against the mass of surging water that went on as far as one could see. We would watch the bow crash into the wall of the wave in front of us and stand there watching as it passed over our heads and then ducking down behind a low bulkhead to avoid getting soaked by the wave just to repeat that action over and over. It was truly a good time and not one easily forgotten.
I travel A LOT..I also watch/read a ton of this stuff..3 observations are present in every incident: 1. The flight deck is always incredibly capable, and excellent with adaptation 2. The flight attendants always perform adrimbly and are key to allowing passengers to live. They do a wonderful job in the face of terror. 3. It is almost always a mechanical failure. Not a human failure. Machines will ALWAYS break. That's what they do. To assume otherwise, is ignorant. Well done, Flight Crew. I'm sorry you lost a member.
737Max crashes were pilot error. Both planes were too low. Raising the nose to gain altitude at low speed causes stall, which causes the plane to fall a few hundred feet. INVESTIGATORS never asked why those planes were so low at that point at takeoff. Note that EARLY 737s were overpowered and took off at a 45 degree angle.
Unfortunately a review of NTSB records, quickly illuminates the fact that pilot error is the primary cause in around 90% of accidents, both in commercial and general aviation.
Nate Miller Where’d you get the idea that mechanical failure is the primary cause of crashes? That hasn’t been true since the very, very early days of aviation.
Well Done! As a retired airline pilot, with many hours in the B737-200, I appreciate your attention to detail and your great story telling style. Seeing the bloody injured passengers sitting in their seats gave me great pause.
The sheer terror that poor flight attendant experienced as she was swept out of the aircraft is unimaginable. I hope her family received a fair compensation even though I understand that in no way replaces the loss of her.
Just to add, I read a report one time that implied that they found biological evidence on the edge of the hole that implied she was probably annihilated on her way out, so that even if the shock and lack of oxygen didn't put her out almost immediately, she probably wasn't even in one piece anyway.
I remember hearing the report of this on the news at the time. I've often wondered about that poor flight attendant, and if anyone ever remembers her. I'm so glad she's remembered here.
Great video. I've seen a few others on TH-cam about Aloha 243, but your comprehensive account of the accident, introduction, the ride down, and what ensued as a result of the accident leaves everyone else's in the dust. Kudos.
Dear HG, the work you put into your stories, to me, is pretty thorough. You always provide plenty of pictures and researched information that would not always be easily available to an average person like me. Thank you for all you do in providing valuable history lessons for everyone.
Great account of a terrifying incident. Not withstanding the tragic loss of the flight attendant, the calm professionalism of the remaining crew that saved everyone else on board really does come under your heading of History that Deserves to be Remembered. Thank you.
I hope that someone remembers The History Guy in much the same way that he has remembered and conveyed important history to all of us. I wish there was someone like him, when I was in school. Ironically, I think we’re the same age. Excellent reporting !
Great video and retelling of this accident. At least 100 computer simulations have been done of this accident that I'm aware of. In not one of them was the aircraft able to land safely. All had the aircraft either break up in the air or upon landing. It was just one more incident that took everything to happen wrong for the accident to occur and everything to go just right to get the aircraft safely on the ground. Hats off to the pilots, crew, and passengers, and a good illustration why you should keep your seatbelt on as long as you're in the seat.
My parents were vacationing in Hawaii at the time. When We looked at their itinerary they were suppose to be on that flight, but they had changed it and were on that flight the day before. We had a hard time trying to get a hold of them and had thought they were on it, until my dad called us the next day. When they got home we were looking at their pictures they had taken, one of them was with who we think was the flight attendant who was killed. My mom said she was a very nice lady. May she rest in peace.
The part of your comment where you said your parents switched to an earlier flight reminded me of an American Airlines jet that crashed about 2 months after 9/11 where a husband and wife couple were so early for their flight that they switched to an earlier flight, the “earlier flight” whose flight number I forget ended up crashing and killing everyone onboard plus some on the ground.
We were staying at a resort on Maui when it happened - of course, no cellphones then, and we were in Lahaina when it came in and we found out about it and got over to the airport...my folks were concerned because they knew we were flying to "another Island" (we had told them Maui) but they heard "Maui" and incident and thought the worst...
I love your content so much, and I'm so glad I subscribed. All history is so interesting to me, I wish my high school and college history classes would have been this interesting and informative. Thank you so much for sharing.
I had completely forgotten about this, sadly enough. Its an absolute miracle that more were not killed and that the pilot was able to land the plane text-book perfect with all the damage. Thank you for providing amazing historic facts on TH-cam. Hopefully, TH-cam doesn't ever one day find some new nothing word or term to be offensive and you have long stay here.
Thanks for posting this. I'm off to Malta next week and don't like flying... On a more serious note, Barbara Jane Harrison was a 22 year old BOAC air stewardess who received the only peacetime award of a George Cross to a woman for trying to save passengers during an aircraft fire in 1968. Sadly the award was posthumous. It might be an episode worth doing in future.
That was a very emotional time. I was 43 years old and I can remember the terror that gripped my heart when this incident happened. My wife and I recently flew aboard a 737-800 and I'm so thankful for the advancement in aircraft maintenance. I'm so sorry for the loss of that flight attendant and Pray her family has been able to receive some Peace after all these years. May God Bless them all. Stan
I had just completed aircraft rescue and firefighting school when this occurred. I was a municipal firefighter, but we had an international airport close by, so we were offered lots of training classes with them. Yet another great video!
Another notable part of this was that a lot of the passengers and some of the crew did not know if the aircraft still had flight crew or even a cockpit as the damage to the aircraft had caused the nose to drop down below the line of sight of a lot of those in the passenger compartments. I cannot imagine what it must have been like sitting on that plane thinking it was not under control and may well fly on until it ran out of fuel and inevitably plunged into the Pacific Ocean...
There’s a theory that the tear strips did initially work as designed - the initial hole was about one foot by one foot. But as the theory goes, the flight attendant was right underneath it and got sucked up into the hole which caused pressure to build up which in turn caused the massive destruction. Either way, it’s obviously a tragedy the flight attendant lost her life and kudos to the crew for their amazing ability to keep calm and safely land the plane, saving nearly 100 lives. The History Guy is the best thing I’ve seen on TH-cam - keep up the great work!
I was living in Honolulu on Hickam Air Base when this happened. After the plane landed it was brought to Hickam and parked at the back of the base so that investigators could go through it. You can see it parked at Hickam AB at the 7:11 mark. The wife and i drove back there and checked the plane out from the street.
For C.B. Lansing may she rest with the Saints and God Bless. But WOW! What an airframe! I remembered seeing the picture of the aircraft in the newspaper and could not believe that it remaind intact. I see these pictures again and I am just as amazed now as I was then. Thank you for sharing this account and give a hug to Mrs. Guy.
I too, am old enough to remember thid incident. I remember the look on the newscaster's face when she was describing how they thought the stewardess was blown out of the plane.
Until I recently retired, I flew something like 50 to 75K miles a year for the last 20 years. I have nothing but respect for flight crews, who have to babysit a variety of people, while maintaining professional standards and safety protocols. I loathe travelers who make their jobs more difficult with their poor behavior, drunken antics, etc. Thank you to all the the flight crews for getting me home!
Brilliant episode! Covers every angle of the story. I have personally studied this event, as it is part of industry qualifications in safety, maintenance etc, and this one event encapsulates every aspect of commercial aircraft operation. The one aspect I wish to reinforce, Aloha Airlines was an entirely family operation, and the standards of maintenance, ground and in air operation was generally beyond normal airline requirements, the ownership having a personal impact on said standards. Any fault found in Aloha was of the nature of not crossing tees, or dotting eyes. Aloha was, and continued to be among the best operators in the world.
Of note: this bird was one of the last "standard" 737-200 models built. Boeing changed the design around 1972 to the "advanced" model, denoted 737-200/adv . The advanced model featured several aerodynamic and structural improvements, including a complete redesign of the fuselage skin structure, that eliminated the lap joints entirely (the structural failure originated in a lap joint, which could not be inspected for corrosion damage without disassembly-one of the reasons that the impending structural failure wasn't caught). Advanced 737-200's could cruise faster and carry more weight than the non-advanced model. The speed improvements were mostly due to the redesign of the fillet between the wing and the engine nacelles.
Gage You’re right: countersunk hole depth should typically never exceed 2/3 the thickness of the sheet metal. Otherwise you get the ‘knife edge’ condition you described.
Amazing incident, and good report. I remember this accident. But this is by far the best information treatment I have ever seen or heard of. Thank you Lance.
I do remember this incident. And I remember seeing the photographs and wondering, like everyone else, how it had stayed together. It can be quite amazing what damage an aircraft can survive. I have seen a photograph of an aircraft, I think it was a Douglas C-54 Skymaster, which had a very large hole in the top of the aircraft just in front of the tail where a Japanese aircraft deliberately rammed the aircraft. It looked like something had taken a huge bite out of the aircraft. The aircraft survived the encounter and managed to get back to an airfield where it landed. The Japanese pilot was less fortunate and was killed in the collision.
I freakin love this channel. How all the stories are random and always historically significant and almost always things that people have never heard of! It’s glorious. Are there educator awards? If so this guy should win several.
Another fantastic video, sir! May I suggest another aviation-related event: Air Florida Flight 90 that crashed into the Potomac River in a snowstorm in 1982. I was eight years old and it's the first major news event of that type that I can clearly remember. Especially remember the man bravely swimming in freezing water to save a drowning woman, and the other man in the wreckage who made sure others got the life preserver.
How about that helicopter pilot, hovering with the skids in the water dragging someone over to the bank, I remember when it happened, I lived in Pennsylvania not too far from DC (as far as a storm goes) and was outside shoveling the walks and driveway in that blizzard because it was coming down so bad that I was afraid if I waited until it was done I'd be too buried to get dug out, it was still coming down when I came inside and they broke into the TV programing with a live feed of the people and parts of the plane in the water, it broke through the ice in the river and the people in the water had the large chunks of ice to deal with, there was a news crew who happened to be in the area when the plane hit the bridge and fired up their cameras and it went out all over the country, I remember the guy diving off of the bridge to rescue the stewardess and that brave helicopter crew doing what they did, I was in high school when that happened.
The man in the wreckage who kept handing off the life preservers was Arland D. Williams, Jr. He received the United States Coast Guard Gold Lifesaving Medal for his actions that day.
If memory serves, the fellow who dived into the water was named Lonnie Skutnik--government employee. I believe he was mentioned by President Reagan for his heroism.
I tried that once when I noticed a number of rivets missing and popped up from the port wing of a 737-300 that I had just boarded. I notified the flight attendant prior to departure. No response.
@@ajg617 was it United? I got so many stories flying with them its ridiculous.... worst airline ive ever flown with. And i have flown with alot of different airlines.
@@Horologist-zu5vq Nope. Another US airline. Actually, I had been flying United since the 1950s. They are great to me until the Continental merger. I won't fly them again.
It was a Japanese passenger that saw it, they often keep things to themselves out of habit and just the way they are taught and how things generally are in Japan, especially back in those days. I'm 99% certain if it was an American or really pretty much any non-Asian, they would have informed someone about it immediately.
I flew into OGG (Kahului) the next day on Hawaiian Airlines and saw the 737 on the tarmac. It was nasty looking....wires, distorted metal, insulation everywhere. At the time, Hawaiian flew DC 9s on their inter-island flights. When I was deplaning I over heard the Captain commenting to the crew that if their DC 9 had this issue, they would never have made it. Boeings are built like a tank he said. Like the saying goes...."If it's not a Boeing, I'm not going."
@@johnhardman3 why? Are you another arrogant European? Boeing by far is much much better design and safe than all the Airbus. Stay were you are and enjoy the covid19.
The work and quality thereof of this content is incredible. This is the standard that makes online video sharing a noble service that others will hopefully emulate.
Wow, I had just finished watching another video on this event when I was notified of a new history guy. Surprised to see same event featured! Keep those seatbelts fastened people!!
THG is quickly becoming the Doyen of Aviation History. So many fascinating events brought to life. I think Aviation History is particularly suited to short form video. Excellent episode.
There was a lot of industry buzz at the time about the irony that this accident would probably never have happened until no smoking became mandatory on all flights. Which had only occurred a few years prior. The easiest and most well known way to spot signs of potential structural fatigue and failures on pressurized aircraft had long been the tell tale nicotine trails from cigarette smoke. In fact it was a long ingrained habit of how pilots and maintenance people quickly checked for microscopic cracks which might lead to structural damage. As you pointed out all that changed after this. The other thing of course is how it further reinforced the image of how tough 737's are. They really can "take a licking and keep on ticking." If you will stick with them they will bring you home!
Upon seeing the first photos/video of that 737 my first thought was "it should not have made it". I think its still the worst structural failure where the aircraft was successfully landed. For a long time after that incident I'd remember that flight every time I boarded a commercial flight.
I remember this flight - a colleague of my then-boyfriend was aboard. Excellent description of the events! I can’t believe the pilot was able to land that thing in (relatively) one piece, either. Another great episode, HG! Yet another episode suggestion: The only treaty between US settlers and Native Americans that was _never_ broken, signed in Fredericksburg, Texas in 1847 between the Comanches and the German Immigration Company, led by John O. Meusebach. The treaty was unique in that the US government had no part in it, which is probably why it held. The German immigrants were safe from attack by the fiercest native tribe and the Comanches kept their hunting grounds and were welcome in the German settlements.
Outstanding channel and its nice to see someone finally give the flight attendants the credit they deserve. I know 99.999999% of the time they just serve drinks etc. But they truly train hard to save lives if needed.
I retired as an engineer from Tinker AFB where we did depot maintenance on USAF aircraft, KC-135, B-52, B-1, and E-3. Depot maintenance is where we take the aircraft down to where it looks like salvage parts, then rebuild it. When I retired in 2012, 35,000 manhours per airframe was the starting point. Some, because of special modifications, were getting over 100,000 manhours in depot. On the KC-135 and B-52, the last ones were made in the early 60's. We replaced parts regularly, especially structural members, that were never intended to be inspected during the life of the plane, much less replaced! We had on staff some world class specialists and bleeding edge technology for corrosion and fatigue. One of my fellow engineers spent months studying this and the causes. One of the factors, which you called Tropical Climate, was really accelerated corrosion from the warm salt air of the Pacific Ocean. We had a command -135 come in from Hickam and it was so full of corrosion and fatigue cracks, we cannibalized it, painted it and mounted it in front of Tinker in the airpark at the Air Depot Blvd entrance. On a lighter note, some years later, a senior manager and I were flying on a Southwest Airlines 737 to a meeting in Arizona. He stepped inside the doorway, turned and squinted at the manufacturer's plate. Then he asked "Is this a convertible model?" The flight crew were not amused. I just grinned sheepishly. I enjoy your tidbits, thanks. There is a lot that deserves to be remembered.
I am somewhat surprised that the B-52H might finally get reengined. Supposedly the decision on which jet engine manufacturer's proposal is the best value is to be made within the next two years, 58 years after they were produced.
@@davidhoffman1278 - Most of the reason the B-52 and KC-135 are both still around is that they were both designed using slide rules and pencils and are all metal aircraft. They also came from a better culture of sacrifice, integrity and hard work. Hence there is something worth re-engining, as they did the KC-135 years ago. Aahh, sweet memory. Haven't thought this much about the place since I retired!!
@@frankboydstun1109 , I somewhat disagree. The Asiana B777 crash at SFO demonstrated just how crash survivable the aircraft is. The airliner half somersaulted during the crash. The impact forces were quite high, yet a very high percentage of the passengers and cabin staff survived. Yes, there were significant injuries, but the aircraft did remarkably well in protecting the occupants. Boeing engineers clearly did a good job designing that aircraft. Common CAD systems allowed a globally sourced aircraft to be assembled with only one significant defect that I know of. The lavatory's outer dimensions were slightly too big for the spaces allocated for them. There eventually was a resolution of that issue that satisfied the FAA. Many years ago Boeing published an analysis of CFIT(Controlled Flight Into Terrain) incidents. It was a goal to use a variety of responses to significantly reduce the rate of CFIT incidents. After two dozen years they have helped to significantly reduce CFIT rates. It is not at 0, but it is lower than it otherwise would have been.
@@davidhoffman1278 - Okay, you want me to remember and think. First, I think we might be talking past each other on two different aspects of aircraft. The crashworthiness of an airframe as in the B777 crash certainly speaks well for Boeing's design and manufacturing work; as does the reduction of CFIT events. However, my point was that the many airframes currently being designed for a twenty-year service life will not be able to go 500% of that service life, as the B-52 and KC-135 because they were not designed or made the same way. HOWEVER, upon further reflection, I believe the reason the B-52 fleet (76 out of original 744) is a candidate for upgrading the engines is because of the difference between USAF and commercial airframe maintenance and commercial maintenance. Commercial operations cross a financial threshold of repair vs buy new vs cease that operation. USAF cannot cross that threshold so simply. Ceasing that operation would probably mean not properly defending the country. Buying new requires a really big effort, Congressional oversight, multiyear funding, etc, etc. Repairing is the much less painful route. So USAF repairs aircraft that commercial enterprises would salvage, and that is probably the greater reason the B-52 is up for modification. One last tidbit; I used to give a sort of personal tour to off-base folks that came in for a meeting or something. I would walk them up to a B-52 on our maintenance ramp. The airframe usually did not have engines or the tail on them, but I would have them duck under the side and stand up with their head and shoulders up in the bomb bay; then tell them this aircraft once was part of a fleet that flew 24/7 with nuclear weapons in this bomb bay. Your head is where a nuclear bomb was....... Some things are worth remembering simply because we are glad they are no more.
@@frankboydstun1109 , The USAF used safe life for aircraft, basically safe for so many flight hours under certain flight conditions. The FAA wanted failsafe, damage tolerance. The B-52Hs stayed for many hours on alert pads, thus a lot of life was left to go before they supposedly reached the safelife limits. C-141s on the otherhand flew many more hours per year. You are absolutely correct about no substitutes being available so you fix the old. We did the centerwing box replacement on the C-141B's. No airline would ever pay for something like that, but the C-17 was way behind and military airlift was needed at almost any price. The BUFF is now facing some of the same wing panel problems the C-141 did. Luckily the composite repair technology we used is far more advanced today. The BUFF's wing panel repair and replacement issues should be less of a pioneering effort than what other aircraft have gone through.
Thank you for covering this. Boeing has become very good at predicting the service lives of aluminium aircraft; having that knowledge to guide visual and aided inspections has obviously prevented a recurrence.
After starting this wonderful video I remembered this incident. The country was amazed that this plane was safely landed. If there ever was a miracle this was it. Thank you for posting.
FWIW: The venerable DC-3 airliners have been so 'long-lasting' because they are unpressurized. Their airframes don't have to deal with the wear pressurization causes....
There is major difference in construction and the material used. From a DC3 to current production aircraft. Not even to discuss speed and uses. The comparison is almost as close too muzzle loader to a AR-15.
That's the best and most detailed explanation I've heard of why the plane reacted the way it did and how it responded the way it did to pressurization. Well done 👍
There is another failure mode well researched by boiler engineer, Matt Austin, known as "water hammer", even though the "working fluid" is air. Despite the bloody outline of a human head on the side of the aircraft, the FAA and NTSB declined to acknowledge the pressure spike as part of why the tear strips didn't work as intended. Google Matt Austin Aloha 243 for all the details, though it is also mentioned in the Aloha 243 Wikipedia article.
For those curious about fluid hammer: th-cam.com/video/xoLmVFAFjn4/w-d-xo.html, th-cam.com/video/JyvoN1hIqRo/w-d-xo.html&list=PLTZM4MrZKfW8Saqr34bzDBN3FBYSoek5A&index=24, th-cam.com/video/aspPJ2Wcaig/w-d-xo.html With the computer power we have now, can a simulation be run of this scenario?
Unreal!! What a pilot, you think the shear force from landing at that speed coupled with the catastrophic damage would have caused a break up upon touchdown. Great story THG!!!
I was an aircraft inspector and mechanic in those days. Remembering many interviews with mechanics following this. One mechanic mentioned looking for smoking rivets during inspections to determine rivet and skin condition. Well this reported armed with this bit of info concluded that mechanics were looking for evidence of cigarette smoke escaping the plane and that banning smoking on flights would make mechanic's job harder. Well a smoking rivet is a slang term for a loose rivet also known as a working rivet. The smoke trail is a result of the rivet chaffing against the aluminum skin. It has nothing to do with cigarette smoke.
I used to work that acft when it belonged to AirCal/AirCalifornia when its number was 711! It was sold to Aloha. I have always wondered if the numbers 711 (lucky) helped at all.
This video still gives me chills after all these years. I flew on that plane the day before the accident. Those pilots were real heroes, most could not have landed the plane safely.
I am a flight attendant for Hawaiian airlines and was flying interisland that day and saw that aircraft on the tarmac the day it happend ...very moving !
The Crew did an amazing job keeping this from being far worse than it was. Sad that even one person was sucked out and lost her life, again it's amazing that with the damage this Aircraft suffered more people didn't suffer the same fate! I have a lot of respect for you and all who do your job, when the routine becomes the unexpected and life's are in Danger, it's people like you who makes the Difference to the passengers. To you and all in your profession, Thank You!
Agreed. Cabin crew are an amazing bunch of people. I worked at LBA for a while and got to know some. All were funny, wise and TOTALLY dedicated. A huge thank you to all cabin crew out there.
ITS NOT CALLED A TARMAC.
@@filipgolonka3758 do you feel better after yelling at me about the hard stand .
a brand of bituminous binder, similar totarmacadam, for surfacing roads, airportrunways, parking areas, etc.
My friend John was sitting in that section, the moon roof section. He was taken off on a stretcher with a head wound. He will be helping me out this Saturday, he could’ve been dead in 1988. Ironically he was then working on Oahu and commuting to work. He still does this every week.
Can you tell us more about his experience?
It would be so nice if you all did a you tube together. I don't know how anyone can fly sfter that. I've flown in the past but have made peace with not flying again. I guess it's not that important for me to see the world. I wish he would talk about overcoming that
I was in the Army flying helicopters in Hawaii when this happened. We landed next to the aircraft the next day after it happened while refueling in Maui. You cannot imagine how bad the damage was...there is no way that flight should have survived.
Thank you for your service sir.
Real professionals flew that plane and helped those passengers. RIP to the lost stewardess.
Thought Experiment: Can you imagine the stewardess simply standing/walking in that aisle and she simultaneously BLINKS and in that blink she hears Boom next thing She feels being blasted/enected and weightless & it takes her maybe 5-10 seconds see and process what just happened meanwhile she is flying through the air everything blowing around her she looks around looks up in freefall sees the plane above her casually flying at the same altitude sbove her like all she knows is AHHHHHH ! Looks down like AHHHHH! falling from 24,000 ft she has time to process all this but she MAY EVEN THINK THIS IS A DREAM THIS IS A DREAM! IM DREAMING. And yeah. What a fucking way to go. That being so spontaneous you would have to be thinking that this is a fucking nightmare its a dream its not real no way How could i have just ejected i lolked up and saw the plane still flying. This event would put her in severe shock be so sure was she woukdve had to thought it was a dream. This is way to outrageous has to be a nightmare has to be a dream this isnt real. But she may have been screaming all the way down like HOW TF WTF , no one else fallong around her WTF.
MrX
Ya i made alot of punctuation mistakes and didnt prooofread so may edit it but godamn imagine if you were her! it would’ve been too outrageous like no way wtf this has to be a dream how was i the only one instanteously shot out the plane is still flying at that altitude (she of course from her angle wouldn’t have seen the top had blown off).
I dont get how that works- you said the atmosphere woukd be to thin making her heart stop? But Skydivers jump from those altitudes all the time without oxygen tanks-you can even watch some on youtube from that altitude. Plus lets say even if the air was too thin, she’s falling out of the sky at such an accelerated rate (she went with the top blowing off it propelled her out of the plane at an acceleration similar to a ejection-seat I know she was standing but im just trying to describe the pressure at which she got launched out of the plane. Think about how much faster she would be falling- in one minute of falling at that speed her altitude wouldve been low enough that even if the air was thin when she initiallygot catapulted thar she wouldn’t be at that altitude long enough where her heart stopped. It sucks knowing that and when she hits the ground or ocean(which is like cement at the speed she hits it) She will be in shock to even feel it its like someone hits you, you dont feel it right away but thing is when you know you’re aboutto be hit I find it hurts more than if you didnt know what happened. honestly id fall Headfirst so i didnt see it and B i wouldnt somehow sustain brutal damage to my internals but still somehow still be alive for a couple of minutes eventually dying. That would be the worst.
_Note to self: If ejected from an airplane look for piles of hay To land on. if no piles of hay then lean forward and go out without feeling a godamn thing Lol_
@Skummeh yes, I heard that too. They believe the skin was ripped as designed, but the stewardess' was sucked into that hole, which resulted in fluid hammer. Which placed tremendous amount of force that ripped apart the whole fuselage.
so, if she was not at that unfortunate location at the time, the plane would not have ripped apart like it did.
Everyone involved in getting that plane down safely and keeping everyone (as best you can in that situation) calm are absolute legends.
HG as an engineer in aircraft structures for over 30 years and counting, this incident changed how aging aircraft are maintained and inspected. Damage Tolerance Analysis became new regulatory requirement added to ultimate and fatigue analyses. DTA determines if cracks develop when will they become critical and what type of inspection and frequency of inspections will detect a crack before becoming critical.
To their credit those pilots were cool and calm and landed their new convertible.
Boeing 737 Targa XD
"New convertible" is not a term I ever want to hear about passenger aircraft, to be completely honest.
I have flown in an open cockpit Boeing several times , but the pt-17 starts out that way, no mid flight transition.
😆😆😆🤣🤣🤣🤣
Jose Sanchez OMG great comment
I was a Flight Attendant and just started flying in March of 1988. In the years that followed we learned about details that of that accident at our Recurrent Safety Training and subsequent incidents on various airlines. The way the aircraft held together was miraculous. Sometimes knowing more is not always a good thing. The last part about the true role of Flight Attendants was great. I had some very serious emergencies and until it happens to you as a passenger you don't realize how important of a role we play.
I remember seeing the pictures of the aircraft on the nightly news with much of the fuselage missing and people still sitting strapped into their seats. Sometime later I learned a classmate of mine from Defiance College was indeed, Captain Robert! Good going Bob!
@M Detlef oh, only a 50 foot section. not much at all, by your standards. another one who just wants to debate
Those vintage pictures of the cabin bring tears to my eyes... they actually had leg room back then.
Ryan Taylor - well it was first class after all.
Bwahahahahahahahahaha
The History Guy: A Channel that Deserves to be Remembered. (And watched regularly!)
Agree 100%👍😊
I would give a thousand Thurs up
Unbelievable amazing story. Rockstar professionals turn the odds on the grim reaper. He came for them all but only got one, sadly enough. Great history telling content. Thank you sir.
I'd like to see a computer land an airplane with that level of damage.
The department of defense is specifically working on universal flying "robots" that watch the instruments and control inputs physically to fly any type of aircraft. With any pace of advancement in computer/robotic systems eventually humans will be surpassed in control, efficiency and emergency maneuvers. The day of blue collar and white collar working heros is winding down although it is not obvious in daily life.
@@greyrunner8565 in theory you're right, but in practice politics, public fear and unionized labor will slow the process beyond reason. In the end automation will be universal in most things, this has been known for decades, but acceptance will be a slow process.
Hearing about this years ago is why I keep my belt on even if the light’s been turned off...you just never know
It's a good idea in any case, because the plane can run into unexpected turbulence at any time. Unless you're leaving your seat it's a good idea to leave it on.
Wow it has been 30 yrs since that happened. I am feel so OLD
I was feeling the same way.
I know
I'm the same age as ye guys but back then I was so focused on surviving that this is the first I heard of it
Yeah I know what you mean, I was 33 in 1988! I just started flying in Alaska and would do so for the next 24 years.
I had forgotten this incident occurred *that long ago....*
My father’s career was airline aircraft maintenance. I remember when this happened. (Few aviation “incidents” went without some discussion between us).
As much as everyone wants to point the finger at Boeing for cold bonding etc, running most of the control cables through the flooring, and the strength of the floor itself, saved the lives of all but the one flight attendant.
edschermer - Yes. This was a success of structural engineering.
@@GH-oi2jf yep- the cold bonding process was phased out due to production process reasons, but lessons learned from this flight protected those older, cold-bonded fuselages until they were all retired
A very similar incident you should cover is British Airways Flight 5390, a BAC-111 from Birmingham to Malaga suffered a explosive decompression when a cockpit window that wasn’t properly fixed in as a result of incorrect bolts separated causing the Captain to be sucked out of the plane. The flight attendants managed to hold the captain who was still outside in the cold temperatures. The Copilot managed to successfully land the plane in Southampton and the captain miraculously survived after what happened.
I do plan an episode on BA 5390, yes. Another harrowing flight!
I actually seen the special on that flight! Yes it was a horrific.To think I only watched the video on it an you guys actually remember an some of you seen it!
I remember that incident. If the pilot had been a cat he would have had considerably less lives then before he started that flight.
When I was in Aviation we studied both the Aloha airlines incident and the BA5390 windshield blowout in a course called 'Human Factors in the workplace'. some very important lessons to be learned from both.
+DanielJ_00 A similar incident but very different causes. The BA incident was caused by errors in maintenance and stores procedures whereas the Aloha plane had suffered major structural failure due to corrosion caused by the salty atmosphere in the Hawaiian islands, despite being a low hours aircraft. The Aloha aircraft was scrapped where it landed, the BA aircraft and captain both remained in service with BA before respectively being retired to the aircraft graveyard and becoming a pilot instructor for BA. Amazingly, a few years before this happened a gentleman called David Gunson, an ex-RAF fighter pilot turned air traffic controller released a recording of his after-dinner speaking called "What Goes Up Might Come Down." It's very funny, and very instructive in the way flying and air traffic control operate (at least in the UK,) and in part of it he talks about, if I remember correctly, an incident from his RAF days when a pilot lost the canopy of his Lightning on a training flight. "It gets very breezy in a convertible at 300mph..." I'm sure the passengers of the Aloha flight would attest to that...
I lived in Seattle at the time, my roommate was a Boeing Electrical Engineer. He knew a bunch of the mechanical and structural engineers who were all shocked the plane held together and continued to fly. A story well told History Guy!
Excellent narrative! You’ve provided a very useful pointer for additional maintenance data as I write my dissertation on the maintenance of nuclear power plants. Thank you!
A suggestion for a future video. I hope you'll do a video about DE-418 USS Tabberer. During a typhoon in December 1944 she rescued 55 men from the sunken destroyer USS Hull. It is an amazing story, and history that deserves to be remembered as you say.
Eric Hutton i still miss my family's boat
@@johnhull6363 me too! DD945 USS Hull was expended as a target after retirement and DD7 (USS Hull) and DD330 (USS Hull) both scrapped. DD350 USS Hull does need to be remembered!
I wish I'd gotten a more detailed account of the typhoons my father-in-law went through. Okinawa was one and I believe the Philippines area was a second. A Yard Minesweeper was the smallest ship in the Navy on the ocean. It bobbed up and down the huge waves like a fishing bobber. The poor guys on the destroyers and ships that size really got hit bad.
They'd roll so easy in the troughs the funnels would touch the water. My F-I-L would think "its not going to recover" but then they'd slowly roll upright and onto the other side. Then the process would repeat itself for hours. But sometimes the destroyers continued rolling and never come upright again. What a sick feeling to watch.
I can't even imagine what those guys went through. A friend was a helmsman on the USS Coral Sea off Vietnam when a typhoon hit. Some waves were so big they didn't splash over the flight deck but the deck plowed into the side of the wave. I know how big that Coral Sea was and no way can I fathom a storm like that.
LuvBorderCollies - yeah. That’s a big wave.
I don’t recall if it was a typhoon or just a real bad spot of weather but one time when my Marine artillery unit was on a deployment aboard LST, USS San Bernadino I believe, which is a flat bottom ship, we were in heavy seas where the swells would be over the top of our ship and especially so when we were in the trough. I remember sticking my arm out to try touching the wall of water as we would roll into it. That was an amazing feeling and sure did make one feel insignificant against the mass of surging water that went on as far as one could see. We would watch the bow crash into the wall of the wave in front of us and stand there watching as it passed over our heads and then ducking down behind a low bulkhead to avoid getting soaked by the wave just to repeat that action over and over. It was truly a good time and not one easily forgotten.
I remember this incident, and then as now I am amazed that they even reached an airport, never mind landing.
Well done as usual.
Aviation archeologist here, I love your aviation videos especially, always spot on love it as always
"Widespread fatigue damage". I know the feeling; that why I use a cane. ( I hate being old 🙁) Thanks for the story. (Subscribed)
Being old and using a cane is much better than the alternative...
I am not old (will not say what my age is in the comment section), but I know what you mean
It's not the years, it's the milage. I also walk with a cane. You should check out Patriot canes. They're very sturdy.
thank GOD for every day!
I travel A LOT..I also watch/read a ton of this stuff..3 observations are present in every incident:
1. The flight deck is always incredibly capable, and excellent with adaptation
2. The flight attendants always perform adrimbly and are key to allowing passengers to live. They do a wonderful job in the face of terror.
3. It is almost always a mechanical failure. Not a human failure. Machines will ALWAYS break. That's what they do. To assume otherwise, is ignorant.
Well done, Flight Crew. I'm sorry you lost a member.
737Max crashes were pilot error. Both planes were too low.
Raising the nose to gain altitude at low speed causes stall, which causes the plane to fall a few hundred feet. INVESTIGATORS never asked why those planes were so low at that point at takeoff. Note that EARLY 737s were overpowered and took off at a 45 degree angle.
Unfortunately a review of NTSB records, quickly illuminates the fact that pilot error is the primary cause in around 90% of accidents, both in commercial and general aviation.
Pilot error is in fact much more common than mechanical failure.
Nate Miller Where’d you get the idea that mechanical failure is the primary cause of crashes? That hasn’t been true since the very, very early days of aviation.
Well Done! As a retired airline pilot, with many hours in the B737-200, I appreciate your attention to detail and your great story telling style. Seeing the bloody injured passengers sitting in their seats gave me great pause.
Thank you!
Wow that is crazy
I liked this shorter version than some of the other versions of this disastrous event. Thanks
The sheer terror that poor flight attendant experienced as she was swept out of the aircraft is unimaginable. I hope her family received a fair compensation even though I understand that in no way replaces the loss of her.
It is believed that she died almost instantly without realizing what had happened.
I hope it was quick so that CB Lansing never knew what happened.
Just to add, I read a report one time that implied that they found biological evidence on the edge of the hole that implied she was probably annihilated on her way out, so that even if the shock and lack of oxygen didn't put her out almost immediately, she probably wasn't even in one piece anyway.
I remember hearing the report of this on the news at the time. I've often wondered about that poor flight attendant, and if anyone ever remembers her.
I'm so glad she's remembered here.
Very well done. Accurately explaining aviation is a rare thing in the press or the web, but you did it. Thank you.
Thank you for these snipets of history! I really enjoy your channel!
Its a miracle that only one person have died during such accident.
I hope you guys had a great thanksgiving. Thanks!
Great video. I've seen a few others on TH-cam about Aloha 243, but your comprehensive account of the accident, introduction, the ride down, and what ensued as a result of the accident leaves everyone else's in the dust. Kudos.
Excellent video again!
Dear HG, the work you put into your stories, to me, is pretty thorough. You always provide plenty of pictures and researched information that would not always be easily available to an average person like me. Thank you for all you do in providing valuable history lessons for everyone.
best history channel on youtube, keep up the good work, history guy
Great account of a terrifying incident. Not withstanding the tragic loss of the flight attendant, the calm professionalism of the remaining crew that saved everyone else on board really does come under your heading of History that Deserves to be Remembered. Thank you.
Great video, incredible story. I enjoy your aviation related histories
I hope that someone remembers The History Guy in much the same way that he has remembered and conveyed important history to all of us. I wish there was someone like him, when I was in school. Ironically, I think we’re the same age. Excellent reporting !
Great video and retelling of this accident. At least 100 computer simulations have been done of this accident that I'm aware of. In not one of them was the aircraft able to land safely. All had the aircraft either break up in the air or upon landing. It was just one more incident that took everything to happen wrong for the accident to occur and everything to go just right to get the aircraft safely on the ground. Hats off to the pilots, crew, and passengers, and a good illustration why you should keep your seatbelt on as long as you're in the seat.
Agreed. I'll definitely keep mine on during any flight I take in future.
computers don't have the GOD factor!
@@ricktimmons458 Amen!
Another exceptional video. This story has been told many times, but you've done the best job.
My parents were vacationing in Hawaii at the time. When We looked at their itinerary they were suppose to be on that flight, but they had changed it and were on that flight the day before. We had a hard time trying to get a hold of them and had thought they were on it, until my dad called us the next day. When they got home we were looking at their pictures they had taken, one of them was with who we think was the flight attendant who was killed. My mom said she was a very nice lady. May she rest in peace.
Scott Devore : Wow!
The part of your comment where you said your parents switched to an earlier flight reminded me of an American Airlines jet that crashed about 2 months after 9/11 where a husband and wife couple were so early for their flight that they switched to an earlier flight, the “earlier flight” whose flight number I forget ended up crashing and killing everyone onboard plus some on the ground.
We were staying at a resort on Maui when it happened - of course, no cellphones then, and we were in Lahaina when it came in and we found out about it and got over to the airport...my folks were concerned because they knew we were flying to "another Island" (we had told them Maui) but they heard "Maui" and incident and thought the worst...
😮❤❤
This is very competent, clear and concise journalism!
I love your content so much, and I'm so glad I subscribed. All history is so interesting to me, I wish my high school and college history classes would have been this interesting and informative. Thank you so much for sharing.
Another good one. Please, HG, don't stop anytime soon.
Who needs TV When i can watch you do amazing videos, i love each and every one of them, keep up the great work, you're the best!
I had completely forgotten about this, sadly enough. Its an absolute miracle that more were not killed and that the pilot was able to land the plane text-book perfect with all the damage. Thank you for providing amazing historic facts on TH-cam. Hopefully, TH-cam doesn't ever one day find some new nothing word or term to be offensive and you have long stay here.
Thanks for posting this. I'm off to Malta next week and don't like flying...
On a more serious note, Barbara Jane Harrison was a 22 year old BOAC air stewardess who received the only peacetime award of a George Cross to a woman for trying to save passengers during an aircraft fire in 1968. Sadly the award was posthumous. It might be an episode worth doing in future.
I never knew Aloha used colors of another airline?!? Hmmm.
Oh yay! Congrats on the TH-cam award I see on the desk! Well deserved! Keep up the fascinating channel please!
That was a very emotional time. I was 43 years old and I can remember the terror that gripped my heart when this incident happened.
My wife and I recently flew aboard a 737-800 and I'm so thankful for the advancement in aircraft maintenance. I'm so sorry for the loss of that flight attendant and Pray her family has been able to receive some Peace after all these years.
May God Bless them all.
Stan
I had just completed aircraft rescue and firefighting school when this occurred. I was a municipal firefighter, but we had an international airport close by, so we were offered lots of training classes with them. Yet another great video!
Another notable part of this was that a lot of the passengers and some of the crew did not know if the aircraft still had flight crew or even a cockpit as the damage to the aircraft had caused the nose to drop down below the line of sight of a lot of those in the passenger compartments. I cannot imagine what it must have been like sitting on that plane thinking it was not under control and may well fly on until it ran out of fuel and inevitably plunged into the Pacific Ocean...
There’s a theory that the tear strips did initially work as designed - the initial hole was about one foot by one foot. But as the theory goes, the flight attendant was right underneath it and got sucked up into the hole which caused pressure to build up which in turn caused the massive destruction.
Either way, it’s obviously a tragedy the flight attendant lost her life and kudos to the crew for their amazing ability to keep calm and safely land the plane, saving nearly 100 lives.
The History Guy is the best thing I’ve seen on TH-cam - keep up the great work!
I was living in Honolulu on Hickam Air Base when this happened.
After the plane landed it was brought to Hickam and parked at the back of the base so that investigators could go through it.
You can see it parked at Hickam AB at the 7:11 mark.
The wife and i drove back there and checked the plane out from the street.
also the United plane was there, the one where the cargo door got sucked off. I worked in the hangar near there. 15 CAMS
For C.B. Lansing may she rest with the Saints and God Bless.
But WOW! What an airframe! I remembered seeing the picture of the aircraft in the newspaper and could not believe that it remaind intact. I see these pictures again and I am just as amazed now as I was then. Thank you for sharing this account and give a hug to Mrs. Guy.
I too, am old enough to remember thid incident. I remember the look on the newscaster's face when she was describing how they thought the stewardess was blown out of the plane.
Until I recently retired, I flew something like 50 to 75K miles a year for the last 20 years. I have nothing but respect for flight crews, who have to babysit a variety of people, while maintaining professional standards and safety protocols. I loathe travelers who make their jobs more difficult with their poor behavior, drunken antics, etc. Thank you to all the the flight crews for getting me home!
H.G. I remember seeing this on the news and it still comes to mind when I board a flight.
Brilliant episode! Covers every angle of the story. I have personally studied this event, as it is part of industry qualifications in safety, maintenance etc, and this one event encapsulates every aspect of commercial aircraft operation. The one aspect I wish to reinforce, Aloha Airlines was an entirely family operation, and the standards of maintenance, ground and in air operation was generally beyond normal airline requirements, the ownership having a personal impact on said standards. Any fault found in Aloha was of the nature of not crossing tees, or dotting eyes. Aloha was, and continued to be among the best operators in the world.
Of note: this bird was one of the last "standard" 737-200 models built. Boeing changed the design around 1972 to the "advanced" model, denoted 737-200/adv . The advanced model featured several aerodynamic and structural improvements, including a complete redesign of the fuselage skin structure, that eliminated the lap joints entirely (the structural failure originated in a lap joint, which could not be inspected for corrosion damage without disassembly-one of the reasons that the impending structural failure wasn't caught). Advanced 737-200's could cruise faster and carry more weight than the non-advanced model. The speed improvements were mostly due to the redesign of the fillet between the wing and the engine nacelles.
Gage You’re right: countersunk hole depth should typically never exceed 2/3 the thickness of the sheet metal. Otherwise you get the ‘knife edge’ condition you described.
Amazing incident, and good report. I remember this accident. But this is by far the best information treatment I have ever seen or heard of. Thank you Lance.
I do remember this incident. And I remember seeing the photographs and wondering, like everyone else, how it had stayed together.
It can be quite amazing what damage an aircraft can survive. I have seen a photograph of an aircraft, I think it was a Douglas C-54 Skymaster, which had a very large hole in the top of the aircraft just in front of the tail where a Japanese aircraft deliberately rammed the aircraft. It looked like something had taken a huge bite out of the aircraft. The aircraft survived the encounter and managed to get back to an airfield where it landed. The Japanese pilot was less fortunate and was killed in the collision.
Randy Rinker
True. It seemed that unless a B17 lost a wing or was broke in half it could be flown to landing.
What can you say? It was a Boeing there must have been a little B-17 built in.
Sort of similar to a story of a B-17 that made it back to base with the front end of an Me-109 stuck in it
I remember this and it never ceases to amaze me. Love your channel!
Fookin' amaaaaaazing that it came down reasonably safely. *WOW* !!!
I freakin love this channel. How all the stories are random and always historically significant and almost always things that people have never heard of! It’s glorious. Are there educator awards? If so this guy should win several.
Another fantastic video, sir! May I suggest another aviation-related event: Air Florida Flight 90 that crashed into the Potomac River in a snowstorm in 1982. I was eight years old and it's the first major news event of that type that I can clearly remember. Especially remember the man bravely swimming in freezing water to save a drowning woman, and the other man in the wreckage who made sure others got the life preserver.
The real story there is how that flight came within literal inches of making it. Another great story for THG!
How about that helicopter pilot, hovering with the skids in the water dragging someone over to the bank, I remember when it happened, I lived in Pennsylvania not too far from DC (as far as a storm goes) and was outside shoveling the walks and driveway in that blizzard because it was coming down so bad that I was afraid if I waited until it was done I'd be too buried to get dug out, it was still coming down when I came inside and they broke into the TV programing with a live feed of the people and parts of the plane in the water, it broke through the ice in the river and the people in the water had the large chunks of ice to deal with, there was a news crew who happened to be in the area when the plane hit the bridge and fired up their cameras and it went out all over the country, I remember the guy diving off of the bridge to rescue the stewardess and that brave helicopter crew doing what they did, I was in high school when that happened.
The man in the wreckage who kept handing off the life preservers was Arland D. Williams, Jr.
He received the United States Coast Guard Gold Lifesaving Medal for his actions that day.
If memory serves, the fellow who dived into the water was named Lonnie Skutnik--government employee. I believe he was mentioned by President Reagan for his heroism.
Love the aviation history bits...keep them coming! The 1979 Chicago DC-10 crash is also aviation history worth remembering...
If I see a crack on the fuselage, I would def say something!
I tried that once when I noticed a number of rivets missing and popped up from the port wing of a 737-300 that I had just boarded. I notified the flight attendant prior to departure. No response.
@@ajg617 was it United? I got so many stories flying with them its ridiculous.... worst airline ive ever flown with. And i have flown with alot of different airlines.
@@Horologist-zu5vq Nope. Another US airline. Actually, I had been flying United since the 1950s. They are great to me until the Continental merger. I won't fly them again.
@@ajg617 The United pilots weren't happy about it either.
It was a Japanese passenger that saw it, they often keep things to themselves out of habit and just the way they are taught and how things generally are in Japan, especially back in those days. I'm 99% certain if it was an American or really pretty much any non-Asian, they would have informed someone about it immediately.
I remember it well. These videos you do on aviation are outstanding! Thank you!
I definitely haven't forgotten. Everytime I get on a 737, or any plane really, I look at the skin behind the door and give her a nice pat on the back.
You really pick out the interesting and relevant details that make each episode worth watching
Amazing professionalism and Bravery.. American Pilots are the best in the world..
John Nonsense. American pilots are top-notch, but so are those of many other countries.
Being middle-aged at the time I remember that very well. I didn't recall the stewardess, she deserves to be remembered. Thank you.
I flew into OGG (Kahului) the next day on Hawaiian Airlines and saw the 737 on the tarmac. It was nasty looking....wires, distorted metal, insulation everywhere. At the time, Hawaiian flew DC 9s on their inter-island flights. When I was deplaning I over heard the Captain commenting to the crew that if their DC 9 had this issue, they would never have made it. Boeings are built like a tank he said. Like the saying goes...."If it's not a Boeing, I'm not going."
In the late 80s early 90s I worked on many DC-8, DC-9 and DC-10 aircraft, I can tell you without a doubt that Douglas aircraft were built like tanks.
( to surferdude...) It's a slightly different tale now [take away the first "not"].
@@johnhardman3 why? Are you another arrogant European? Boeing by far is much much better design and safe than all the Airbus. Stay were you are and enjoy the covid19.
The work and quality thereof of this content is incredible. This is the standard that makes online video sharing a noble service that others will hopefully emulate.
Wow, I had just finished watching another video on this event when I was notified of a new history guy. Surprised to see same event featured! Keep those seatbelts fastened people!!
THG is quickly becoming the Doyen of Aviation History. So many fascinating events brought to life. I think Aviation History is particularly suited to short form video.
Excellent episode.
There was a lot of industry buzz at the time about the irony that this accident would probably never have happened until no smoking became mandatory on all flights. Which had only occurred a few years prior. The easiest and most well known way to spot signs of potential structural fatigue and failures on pressurized aircraft had long been the tell tale nicotine trails from cigarette smoke. In fact it was a long ingrained habit of how pilots and maintenance people quickly checked for microscopic cracks which might lead to structural damage. As you pointed out all that changed after this. The other thing of course is how it further reinforced the image of how tough 737's are. They really can "take a licking and keep on ticking." If you will stick with them they will bring you home!
Upon seeing the first photos/video of that 737 my first thought was "it should not have made it". I think its still the worst structural failure where the aircraft was successfully landed. For a long time after that incident I'd remember that flight every time I boarded a commercial flight.
Hadn't considered that(the nicotine trails escaping the fuselage), but it makes sense.
My dad was pilot on DC8's and many others, and he said at was obvious where the air leaks were because of the tar buildup.
I remember this. Thank you for putting this up.
I remember this flight - a colleague of my then-boyfriend was aboard. Excellent description of the events! I can’t believe the pilot was able to land that thing in (relatively) one piece, either. Another great episode, HG!
Yet another episode suggestion: The only treaty between US settlers and Native Americans that was _never_ broken, signed in Fredericksburg, Texas in 1847 between the Comanches and the German Immigration Company, led by John O. Meusebach. The treaty was unique in that the US government had no part in it, which is probably why it held. The German immigrants were safe from attack by the fiercest native tribe and the Comanches kept their hunting grounds and were welcome in the German settlements.
That's very interesting, any update on it? If not, thanks I will look for it. Best regards from BC.
Outstanding channel and its nice to see someone finally give the flight attendants the credit they deserve. I know 99.999999% of the time they just serve drinks etc. But they truly train hard to save lives if needed.
I remember when this happened. I can't even imagine how scary it had been. Great video!👍❤️🤗 BUNGA! BUNGA!
Bunga bunga!
I too remember this.
You are phrasing it wrong. You were supposed to say, "I had forgotten all about this until the History Guy reminded me."
What is "Bunga Bunga"?
@@abcdef-cf2uk It's from my favorite History Guy video: th-cam.com/video/FM2qnzrLZFw/w-d-xo.html
This was one of my favorite episodes of Mayday, I like the personal tough you put on simlar stories
I retired as an engineer from Tinker AFB where we did depot maintenance on USAF aircraft, KC-135, B-52, B-1, and E-3. Depot maintenance is where we take the aircraft down to where it looks like salvage parts, then rebuild it. When I retired in 2012, 35,000 manhours per airframe was the starting point. Some, because of special modifications, were getting over 100,000 manhours in depot. On the KC-135 and B-52, the last ones were made in the early 60's. We replaced parts regularly, especially structural members, that were never intended to be inspected during the life of the plane, much less replaced! We had on staff some world class specialists and bleeding edge technology for corrosion and fatigue. One of my fellow engineers spent months studying this and the causes. One of the factors, which you called Tropical Climate, was really accelerated corrosion from the warm salt air of the Pacific Ocean. We had a command -135 come in from Hickam and it was so full of corrosion and fatigue cracks, we cannibalized it, painted it and mounted it in front of Tinker in the airpark at the Air Depot Blvd entrance. On a lighter note, some years later, a senior manager and I were flying on a Southwest Airlines 737 to a meeting in Arizona. He stepped inside the doorway, turned and squinted at the manufacturer's plate. Then he asked "Is this a convertible model?" The flight crew were not amused. I just grinned sheepishly. I enjoy your tidbits, thanks. There is a lot that deserves to be remembered.
I am somewhat surprised that the B-52H might finally get reengined. Supposedly the decision on which jet engine manufacturer's proposal is the best value is to be made within the next two years, 58 years after they were produced.
@@davidhoffman1278 - Most of the reason the B-52 and KC-135 are both still around is that they were both designed using slide rules and pencils and are all metal aircraft. They also came from a better culture of sacrifice, integrity and hard work. Hence there is something worth re-engining, as they did the KC-135 years ago. Aahh, sweet memory. Haven't thought this much about the place since I retired!!
@@frankboydstun1109 ,
I somewhat disagree.
The Asiana B777 crash at SFO demonstrated just how crash survivable the aircraft is. The airliner half somersaulted during the crash. The impact forces were quite high, yet a very high percentage of the passengers and cabin staff survived. Yes, there were significant injuries, but the aircraft did remarkably well in protecting the occupants. Boeing engineers clearly did a good job designing that aircraft.
Common CAD systems allowed a globally sourced aircraft to be assembled with only one significant defect that I know of. The lavatory's outer dimensions were slightly too big for the spaces allocated for them. There eventually was a resolution of that issue that satisfied the FAA.
Many years ago Boeing published an analysis of CFIT(Controlled Flight Into Terrain) incidents. It was a goal to use a variety of responses to significantly reduce the rate of CFIT incidents. After two dozen years they have helped to significantly reduce CFIT rates. It is not at 0, but it is lower than it otherwise would have been.
@@davidhoffman1278 - Okay, you want me to remember and think. First, I think we might be talking past each other on two different aspects of aircraft. The crashworthiness of an airframe as in the B777 crash certainly speaks well for Boeing's design and manufacturing work; as does the reduction of CFIT events. However, my point was that the many airframes currently being designed for a twenty-year service life will not be able to go 500% of that service life, as the B-52 and KC-135 because they were not designed or made the same way. HOWEVER, upon further reflection, I believe the reason the B-52 fleet (76 out of original 744) is a candidate for upgrading the engines is because of the difference between USAF and commercial airframe maintenance and commercial maintenance. Commercial operations cross a financial threshold of repair vs buy new vs cease that operation. USAF cannot cross that threshold so simply. Ceasing that operation would probably mean not properly defending the country. Buying new requires a really big effort, Congressional oversight, multiyear funding, etc, etc. Repairing is the much less painful route. So USAF repairs aircraft that commercial enterprises would salvage, and that is probably the greater reason the B-52 is up for modification. One last tidbit; I used to give a sort of personal tour to off-base folks that came in for a meeting or something. I would walk them up to a B-52 on our maintenance ramp. The airframe usually did not have engines or the tail on them, but I would have them duck under the side and stand up with their head and shoulders up in the bomb bay; then tell them this aircraft once was part of a fleet that flew 24/7 with nuclear weapons in this bomb bay. Your head is where a nuclear bomb was....... Some things are worth remembering simply because we are glad they are no more.
@@frankboydstun1109 ,
The USAF used safe life for aircraft, basically safe for so many flight hours under certain flight conditions. The FAA wanted failsafe, damage tolerance.
The B-52Hs stayed for many hours on alert pads, thus a lot of life was left to go before they supposedly reached the safelife limits. C-141s on the otherhand flew many more hours per year.
You are absolutely correct about no substitutes being available so you fix the old. We did the centerwing box replacement on the C-141B's. No airline would ever pay for something like that, but the C-17 was way behind and military airlift was needed at almost any price.
The BUFF is now facing some of the same wing panel problems the C-141 did. Luckily the composite repair technology we used is far more advanced today. The BUFF's wing panel repair and replacement issues should be less of a pioneering effort than what other aircraft have gone through.
I’d love to have had you as a history teacher, passion is palpable
Thank you for covering this. Boeing has become very good at predicting the service lives of aluminium aircraft; having that knowledge to guide visual and aided inspections has obviously prevented a recurrence.
Once again another amazing video from one of my favorite TH-cam channels!!!👍
A classic case study in most mechanical engineering courses today. Amazing piloting and service crew without a doubt.
Another professional presentation of historical facts. Thank you!
One hell of a Captain and Crew!❤
After starting this wonderful video I remembered this incident. The country was amazed that this plane was safely landed. If there ever was a miracle this was it. Thank you for posting.
FWIW: The venerable DC-3 airliners have been so 'long-lasting' because they are unpressurized. Their airframes don't have to deal with the wear pressurization causes....
RocKiteman _ 2001 only because it didn't fly that high.
There is major difference in construction and the material used. From a DC3 to current production aircraft. Not even to discuss speed and uses.
The comparison is almost as close too muzzle loader to a AR-15.
That's the best and most detailed explanation I've heard of why the plane reacted the way it did and how it responded the way it did to pressurization. Well done 👍
There is another failure mode well researched by boiler engineer, Matt Austin, known as "water hammer", even though the "working fluid" is air. Despite the bloody outline of a human head on the side of the aircraft, the FAA and NTSB declined to acknowledge the pressure spike as part of why the tear strips didn't work as intended. Google Matt Austin Aloha 243 for all the details, though it is also mentioned in the Aloha 243 Wikipedia article.
For those curious about fluid hammer: th-cam.com/video/xoLmVFAFjn4/w-d-xo.html, th-cam.com/video/JyvoN1hIqRo/w-d-xo.html&list=PLTZM4MrZKfW8Saqr34bzDBN3FBYSoek5A&index=24, th-cam.com/video/aspPJ2Wcaig/w-d-xo.html
With the computer power we have now, can a simulation be run of this scenario?
Probably was the head of the flight attendant sadly enough.
@@davidvogel6359 Exactly.
Suprised i had to dig this deep to find it. This is my personal theory too.
I love this channel. I could watch it all night light long, sometimes I do.
Unreal!! What a pilot, you think the shear force from landing at that speed coupled with the catastrophic damage would have caused a break up upon touchdown. Great story THG!!!
GREAT Boeing airplane! It saved how many lives by being built tough?
That was very very interesting. I liked this one a lot. Thanks
H. Guy
Thank you sir
that was another great tail from history they should make a movie out at one
I was an aircraft inspector and mechanic in those days. Remembering many interviews with mechanics following this. One mechanic mentioned looking for smoking rivets during inspections to determine rivet and skin condition. Well this reported armed with this bit of info concluded that mechanics were looking for evidence of cigarette smoke escaping the plane and that banning smoking on flights would make mechanic's job harder. Well a smoking rivet is a slang term for a loose rivet also known as a working rivet. The smoke trail is a result of the rivet chaffing against the aluminum skin. It has nothing to do with cigarette smoke.
I used to work that acft when it belonged to AirCal/AirCalifornia when its number was 711!
It was sold to Aloha. I have always wondered if the numbers 711 (lucky) helped at all.
This video still gives me chills after all these years. I flew on that plane the day before the accident. Those pilots were real heroes, most could not have landed the plane safely.