#LANSING ATC TOWER LANSING SKIN#

Tompkins immediately contacted Air Traffic Control on Maui to declare mayday.Īt the time of the decompression, the chief flight attendant, Clarabelle 'C.B.' Lansing, was standing at seat row 5 collecting drink cups from passengers. Captain Robert Schornstheimer looked back and saw blue sky where the first class cabin's roof had been. This has been referred to as a zipper effect.įirst Officer Madeline 'Mimi' Tompkins' head was jerked back during the decompression, and she saw cabin insulation flying around the cockpit. The age of the plane and the condition of the fuselage (that had corroded and was stressing the rivets beyond their designed capacity) appear to have conspired to render the design a part of the problem when that first controlled area broke away, according to the small rupture theory, the rapid sequence of events resulted in the failure sequence. The intent was to provide controlled depressurization that would maintain the integrity of the fuselage structure.

#LANSING ATC TOWER LANSING SKIN#

The resulting explosive decompression tore off a large section of the roof, consisting of the entire top half of the aircraft skin extending from just behind the cockpit to the fore-wing area.Īs part of the design of the 737, stress may be alleviated by controlled area breakaway zones. No unusual occurrences were reported during the take-off and climb.Īround 13:48, as the aircraft reached its normal flight altitude of 24,000 feet (7,300 m) about 23 nautical miles (43 km) south-southeast of Kahului, a small section on the left side of the roof ruptured. There were 90 passengers and five crew members on board. The aircraft, Queen Liliuokalani (registration number N73711), took off from Hilo International Airport at 13:25 HST on 28 April 1988, bound for Honolulu. The safe landing of the aircraft with such a major loss of integrity was unprecedented and remains unsurpassed. Another 65 passengers and crew were injured. Lansing who was blown out of the airplane. The only fatality was flight attendant C.B. On April 28, 1988, a Boeing 737-297 serving the flight suffered extensive damage after an explosive decompression in flight, but was able to land safely at Kahului Airport on Maui. Aloha Airlines Flight 243 was a scheduled Aloha Airlines flight between Hilo and Honolulu in Hawaii.

Lansing atc tower lansing