Of 737's and Fuselage Holes: A Look Back at Aloha Airlines #243 in 1988

[pulledpork]

From an article published in 2001:

Engineer fears repeat of 1988 Aloha jet accident

As an Aloha Airlines jet began landing on Maui, passenger Matt Austin noticed the luggage racks rattling and swaying when the thrust reversers came on.

It didn’t startle him. He had seen that happen before on other older Aloha jets. But Austin remembered the name painted across the plane’s exterior: Queen Lili‘uokalani. It was a 19-year-old Boeing 737.

A week later — on April 28, 1988 — the same jet’s roof ripped open 24,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean, killing one flight attendant and seriously injuring seven passengers and a crew member. Austin counted himself lucky. Aloha Flight 243’s last flight didn’t really begin to grip him until the next year, when the National Transportation Safety Board issued its accident report.

This is a detective story. It’s about a mystery that aviation professionals say was solved 12 years ago and the persistence of Austin, a former Hawai‘i boiler inspector, who has spent all those years and $45,000 of his money trying to prove that the experts got it wrong.

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/2001/Jan/18/118localnews1.html


Keep in mind that the entire fleet of Southwest Airlines is 737's.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

1. The 737 "Neo-Classic's" and 737-700NG might as well be different types

The "Neo-Classics" are garbage in general and have been disproportionally retired by airlines compared to Airbus A320's and MD-80's of the same vintage.

[hayu_lol]

3. Aloha used to use Gooney Birds(DC-3)...

back when I lived in Honolulu.

Everyone, except the stewardess, was fortunate that the airframe held together through the landing process.

[BlueCollar]

5. My info is that 70 of their -300 series

have been grounded. Those are oldest in their fleet.

[Bluebear]

2. Keep in mind that Southwest Airlines is one of the most heavily unionized airlines

and has an outstanding safety record. Just a thought.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

4. and a history of few consequential labor disputes and zero strikes

Funny what people not being adversarial jerkoffs by default can accomplish...

[pulledpork]

6. I am glad that they are

But Southwest ultimately has to answer for the enormous FAA fines levied against them in 2009 for failing to keep up with said inspections.

I did not post this as a statement one way or the other about unions or unionized workforces, of which I am most certainly supportive of completely. So why the passive-aggressive aside?