Aloha Airlines Flight 243 - The Cabin Crew Perspective

Almost 38 years ago, the unthinkable happened, and what followed can only be described as a miracle landing. It was April 28, 1988, and a routine service for Aloha Airlines Flight 243 on a Boeing 737-297 named Queen Liliuokalani from Hilo, Big Island, Hawaii. There were 89 passengers onboard; it was a popular route and a typical sunny day. The flight crew were Captain Robert Schornsteiner and First Officer Madeline ‘Mimi' Tompkins. An FAA Air Traffic Controller was seated on the jumpseat.The Flight Crew There were three flight attendants onboard. In charge that day was Purser Clarabelle (C.B.) Lancing. She had been flying for 37 years and was one of the first Aloha Airlines flight attendants. She had joined straight after high school and was popular with passengers and crew alike, and had appeared in advertisements for the airline. She was described as 'personable' and 'top of the line' by a regular passenger on the airline. He also described her as attractive and beautiful and said that you could always ask her anything. She was known to take her duties very seriously. Clarabelle was assisted by flight attendants Jane Sato-Tomita and Michelle Honda, who had worked for the airline for 14 years. Boarding was slow but uneventful. A passenger reportedly thought that they saw a crack in the fuselage near the aircraft door while boarding, but did not mention this to the crew. At 13:25, flight 243 took off from Hilo. At 24.000ft, the passengers remained in their seats with seatbelts on for such a short flight, and the flight attendants started their in-flight service. Clarabelle was at row five of the aircraft serving drinks, Jane was at row two, and Michelle was working at row 15. Michelle then returned to her station and saw in the mirror that Clarabelle was still in the cabin. Explosive DecompressionSuddenly at 13:48, there was a catastrophic explosive decompression (loss of cabin altitude) that ripped off the left side of the fuselage. The force of the decompression continued to peel back the aircraft fuselage, leaving the top half of the aircraft's front exposed to the elements. The first officer was flying the aircraft and heard the whoosh in the cabin and saw some gray insulation floating in mid-air. The captain felt the aircraft roll slightly and turned around to see "blue sky where the first-class ceiling had been." Clarabelle was sucked out of the aircraft, and despite a search, her body was never found. Jane was thrown into the economy cabin, covered in debris, and legs trapped by wires. She suffered lacerations on her head and was bleeding and unconscious. Michelle felt pressure on her left shoulder and was thrown shoeless to the floor. The aircraft was filled with swirling debris, the floor at the front had buckled, and the forces of the air pressure were incomprehensible. Michelle knew from her training that it was a decompression. "There was a smoke-like vapour in all the debris flying around. Paper, fibreglass, asbestos. It was kind of white. That's why I say blizzard, although it wasn't cold."Michelle's ActionsMichelle crawled down the aisle, holding onto the base of the seats. She knew she needed to put on an oxygen mask, but couldn't reach one, so she breathed shallowly and was worried she'd pass out. She shouted to the passengers to put on their life jackets, but was struggling with the noise. She knew that she still had to continue her duties. "I remember being on the floor. Crawling up the aisle rung by rung, telling people to put on life vests. I remember looking up at people on my back and calling up and helping them take out the vests. One mother asked me to help her son. He was across the aisle in a B seat. He was scared, but he didn't say anything. You could see it in his face. His eyes were searching. I think everybody had that look." The oxygen mask system was destroyed. Michelle tried to calm the passengers and sometimes found herself faced upwards on her back in the cabin, holding on for dear life. She managed to reach Jane but could not free her from the wreckage. "The passengers were reaching out and holding me as I went by and grabbed their arms. The closer you came to the hole, the more intense the wind was. I didn't know if I would have stayed in the aircraft if I let go, and I wasn't about to find out". She managed to reach Jane but could not free her from the wreckage at the most exposed part of the aircraft. So instead she asked passengers to hold her down. "The first time I saw her, I thought she was dead. She was just on the borderline of the hole. Her head was split open in the back, and she was under debris. My central thought was to get Jane to the back of the aircraft. I tried to move her and drag her back, but I couldn't get her. I didn't realise she was unconscious." The passengers were injured by debris and covered in blood, and Michelle continued to work her way through the aircraft, trying to console them and remove fallen debris. The view of the cockpit had been obscured so much so that a passenger asked if it was still there. Michelle was working through her emergency checklists and hadn't considered that the pilots may also have been sucked out of the aircraft. "I guess that it is so ingrained that we take off and we land, and our cockpit is there that I didn't even think, ‘Are they flying this?' I assumed they were there as we were making turns." Michelle tried to contact the flight crew but to no avail, as the interphone system was destroyed. She was concerned that the situation in the cabin could become 'potential for hysteria' as the passengers were asking questions and looking apprehensive. She saw a passenger with a piece of debris embedded in his face, but knew from her first aid training that this was to be left alone, and she could not help but only console. "He said could you take this off? I was trying to pull it away. But I realised the staples had stapled into the side of his face, and the staples were pulling his face. I told him I couldn't help him. At that point, I figured from my first aid training to leave that kind of stuff in." The flight crew was still in place, and they had immediately started an emergency descent at the time of the decompression. They had suffered a number-one engine failure due to debris being ingested in the engine. As the aircraft was coming down to land in Maui, she tried to shout her commands 'Heads Down!' but no voice was coming out. She crawled through the cabin and held onto whatever she could, and to Jane with the passengers' help. She lay down next to Jane and held on to her belt. The aircraft landed safely at the airport in Maui at 13:58, just ten minutes after the decompression. Michelle started the evacuation with the help of an off-duty flight attendant, Amy Jones-Brown, who was traveling as a passenger. All passengers survived, although some were severely injured. Jane suffered a concussion and major cuts to her head and was taken to the hospital. It was only then that Michelle realized that Clarabelle was missing. She later commented: "No one saw her leave." The AftermathThere is no doubt that Michele did everything she could in the circumstances to do her duty and try to look after the passengers. She was concerned that in an emergency, she would forget her drills and training. She even downplayed what had happened to her daughter, calling it 'a mechanical' and that she would be home late. Even afterwards, she visited the hospital to see the passengers she'd gone through this disaster with. Despite being called 'a hero,' she responded by saying that she was just doing her job. Here was a committed flight attendant who went beyond the call of duty. The surviving flight attendants later said: "A lot of attention has been focused on our efforts and the valiant efforts of the pilots, but we would also like to thank the passengers who helped keep us on the aircraft." The cause of the accident was an explosive decompression in flight caused by part of the fuselage breaking due to poor maintenance and metal fatigue. The quotes from Michelle Honda in this story are taken from an interview in The Washington Post, May 18, 1988 ‘A Flight Attendant's Moments In The Maelstrom'