This is the remains of Aloha Airlines Flight 243.
About 20 minutes into its journey, a large chunk of the fuselage tore off, subjecting
the passengers and crew to explosive decompression, and exposure to the elements at 24,000 ft
(7,000 metres).
So, what happened to them?
Aloha Airlines was an American airline company headquartered in Hawaii, USA.
On April 28th 1988, they had scheduled Flight 243 - taking passengers from Hilo on Hawaii
Island to Honolulu on Oahu.
The flight would be the sixth that day for the assigned Boeing 737 - and it would also
be its last.
Flight 243 never made it to Oahu.
The captain was 44-year-old Robert Schornstheimer, the first officer - 36-year-old Madeline Tompkins.
With three flight attendants on board, the crew totalled five.
There were 90 passengers.
As they were boarding, one passenger noted a crack on the outside of the fuselage, to
the right of the entry door.
She assumed that if it were visible to her, then the qualified technicians and engineers
would have been well aware of it, and thus it wasn't a problem.
This passenger, was mistaken.
As it later turned out, Aloha Airlines had a whole fleet of planes that were in desparate
need of thorough maintainance and repair.
This was despite the fact that their engineers conducted inspections more frequently than
Boeing recommended, in relation to the planes' flight hours.
Boeing recommended what's known as a "D-check" every 20,000 flight hours - but Aloha Airlines
performed one every 15,000 hours.
So how did the planes fall into such disrepair?
This is because the number of flight hours aren't necessarily what wears down an aircraft.
The cabin of a plane like the 737 is essentially a large pressure vessel.
It's pressurised during ascent and de-pressurized during descent.
This pressurisation cycle causes stress and fatigue to the construction of an aircraft,
as the components expand and contract with each cycle, eventually resulting in pieces
needing repair and replacement.
This was a problem for Aloha Airlines, as their flights between the Hawaiin Islands
were very short, meaning they racked up pressurisation cycles at an incredible rate when compared
to their flight hours.
In fact, at this point in time, Aloha Airlines operated the two highest pressurisation-cycle
737's in the world.
This aircraft was number two - in just 35,000 hours of flight, this plane racked up nearly
90,000 pressurisation cycles - more than double than it's designed for.
Flight 243 departed Hilo at 1:25pm.
About 20 minutes later, the aircraft is southeast of the island of Maui, at an altitude of about
24,000 ft (7,000 metres).
Although the fasten seatbelt light was still on, the flight attendants were already serving
drinks, a usual occurence because the flights were so short.
Lead flight attendant Clarabelle Lansing was handing a drink to a passenger at row 5 in
first-class, when suddenly there was an explosion, and she was gone.
An 18.5 foot (5.6) section of the fuselage had torn off, sending debris everywhere and
explosively decompressing the cabin.
Everything on board was now being sucked towards the gaping hole - this force would literally
take the air out of your lungs.
Clarabell Lansing was standing right beneath the now open roof, and had been dragged out
to her doom.
Flight attendant Jane Sato-Tomita had been hit by flying debris and knocked unconscious.
Luckily her limp body became trapped in debris, and she remained onboard the aircraft.
Flight attendant Michelle Honda managed to survive by holding onto the supports for the
seats.
Explosive decompression can only last for so long though, and once the air from the
cabin had escaped, the air from outside the plane started to come in.
Passengers that were suspended in place only by their seat belts were now slammed back
into place.
A thunderous roar of freezing winds battered them at hundreds of miles an hour.
Trying to breathe at this altitude, was a big problem, and one with no solution, as
the delivery system for the oxygen masks had been taken out in the explosion.
Michelle Honda tried her best to console passengers - some were injured by debris, all were panicked.
Over the noise of the air rushing into the cabin she heard someone ask if the pilots
were still in control of the plane.
She didn't know if they were, in fact, she didn't even know if they were still in the
plane.
She ran for the crew phone at the back of the plane, but couldn't get in touch with
the cockpit because the line had been severed.
Panic now overwhelming her, she began to ask passengers if they knew how to fly a plane.
Captain Schornstheimer and first officer Tompkins were indeed still on board.
They looked behind them to see the cockpit door was missing, and beyond that they saw
part of the roof had been replaced with sky, although they couldn't see just how extensive
the damage was.
They decided to make an emergency landing on Maui.
The captain began to rapidly descend, trying to get everyone to a more hospitable altitude
as quickly as possible.
This had two unintended consequences - many passengers thought the plane was now falling
out of the sky, and more importantly, an incredible amount of stress was now being placed on what
remained of the first class section.
Schornstheimer was unaware that the cockpit was connected to the rest of the plane by
18 feet of floor.
Passengers watched on in horror as the floor sagged and buckled.
As the captain came to the final approach for the emergency landing, a number of things
compounded his already loose control of the aircraft.
Firstly, the light for the nose landing gear wasn't coming on.
Whether this was a fault with the nose gear or just the light was a mystery, but if there
was no nose gear, there was no chance Schornstheimer or Tompkins would survive this landing.
Second, the left engine had failed, having eaten debris from the initial explosion.
But with the runway in sight, Schornstheimer had bigger worries.
Like the flaps on the plane.
Tompkins had put them to landing position but had to put them back when it made the
plane near uncontrollable.
Without the flaps, they were coming in to land at very high speed.
As the plane came into view of the airport, onlookers dropped to the ground upon seeing
the state it was in.
The air traffic controller was able to visually confirm to the crew that the nose gear was
down.
And then, the plane landed safely.
The ordeal had lasted thirteen minutes.
Sixty-five were injured, some seriously, although Maui was unprepared for an emergency of this
nature.
The island had just two ambulances, and the air traffic controller had actually forgotten
to call one.
Instead a tour company provided its tour vans to evacuated the injured, and some of its
driver who were former paramedics established a triage on the runway.
The crew wondered where flight attendant Clarabelle Lansing had gone, although a blood stain on
the outside of the craft gave a bleak indication.
The 58-year-old was a veteran flight attendant of 37 years.
She was pronounced dead, although her body would never be found.
The detached piece of the plane's fuselage would also evade detection.
This gave experts called into investigate some trepidation.
If the section was missing, it would be impossible to tell how it failed.
However, after seeing the craft, the entire thing was in such a shocking state that it
was easy to see how any of it could break.
If this plane hadn't had this accident, it still would have required a year's worth of
repairs.
Now it was only fit for the scrapyard.
Aloha Airlines was criticised for their poor maintainance protocols, and inspection of
the rest of their fleet revealed more planes had to be scrapped or repaired.
They overhauled their maintenance program, and the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration)
adopted much stricter protocols to ensure no other airline would have such a disaster
under their watch.
Although it would never fly again, it's amazing this aircraft made a safe landing.
A picture alone is enough to tell you how proud the crew should be for being able to
land it, and how terrifying the whole ordeal must have been for everyone on board - all
but one of whom survived.
They were thrashed around, showered in debris, exposed to the elements at an altitude where
the air is thin, and they all would be forgiven for believing they were doomed, because rightfully
they were - really what Schornstheimer and Thompkins did was conquer reality - they brought
them back from the brink, and ultimately, saved them
their lives.