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org slash real-life floor flying on an
airplane is already a pretty stressful
experience for many of us but imagine
how much more stressful it would be if
the plane you were flying in was a
convertible and the pilots decided to
drop the top back mid-flight an entire
list of pretty bad things would probably
end up happening to you and I assume
that you would most likely not have a
good time fortunately for you this will
probably never happen again but
unfortunately for some of the unluckiest
95 people to have ever existed something
like this actually did happen once upon
a time back in the distant past of 1988
Aloha Airlines used to be a company that
operated out of Honolulu and serviced
the major Hawaiian airports with
connections to the US and Canadian west
coasts Aloha Airlines flight 243
happened to be a regularly scheduled
short flight between Hilo on the Big
Island of Hawaii and Honolulu on the
28th of April in 1988 the plane that was
servicing the route was a Boeing 737 297
nothing unusual was noted during the
pre-departure inspection and the plane
had already completed three round-trip
flights just that day so everything was
lining up to be just another routine
flight over to Honolulu the captain on
board was a 44 year old veteran with
8,500 flight hours while the first
officer was also a highly experienced 36
year old with 8,000 flight hours in
total there were six crew members and 89
passengers on board and all of them were
unknowingly in for one of the wildest
experiences that a human has probably
ever had the plane performed a routine
takeoff from Hilo and casually reached
its cruising altitude of 24,000 feet but
approximately 23 minutes after takeoff
while the plane was located about 23
nautical miles away from the island of
Maui bad things began to happen drinks
were just being served in the
first-class area when everybody heard a
sudden bang and just like that the
entire roof of the planes stretching
from the back of the cockpit to the
plane's wing just disintegrated and went
flying off into the atmosphere fifty
four-year-old flight attendant
Clarabelle Lansing was
handing a drink to a customer when the
rushing wind immediately pulled her up
and out of the plane without any
protection her body was never discovered
afterwards fortunately though everyone
else on board were wearing their seat
belts at the time which prevented any
similar incidents from happening
unfortunately however was that falling
out of the plane was not the only danger
the remaining 94 people on board were
exposed to a whirlwind of flying metal
and debris left over from what had just
been the roof passengers on board who
look around 180 degrees around them and
seen nothing but open sky a woman who is
in c2c next to what had just been a
window had her face sliced repeatedly by
flying metal and flailing wires after
hearing the bang and noticing the sudden
change in cabin pressure the captain
turned around to realize that not only
had the cockpit door been completely
ripped away but all he could see behind
him was just a clear open blue sky where
you know there used to be a roof
fortunately though the two pilots were
still capable of controlling the
aircraft and they began an immediate
descent in change of course to the
nearest available airport over on Maui
the plane began to violently yaw and
roll while a lot of the metal from the
roof had simultaneously flown into both
of the engines causing engine number 1
to fail the crew couldn't get it to
restart and they had to rely on
single-engine power before encountering
the next problem the nearest airport on
Maui was only a few minutes flying away
but when the crew attempted to lower the
landing gear they didn't receive a
positive green light indicating that it
had been but they also didn't receive a
negative red light which would have
indicated that it failed so they just
kind of had to hope for the best that
the landing gear actually had been
successfully lowered meanwhile the
passengers on board were obviously
pretty terrified at first everybody just
assumed that the plane was going down
and that they were all going to die but
after a while when that didn't happen
and the plane continued to keep flying
without its roof many of the passengers
reported that they began to feel a
sudden sense of optimism and hope still
it took the plane to 13 more agonizing
minutes of flying without a roof full of
terrified people before it finally
arrived at the airport on Maui and
performed a successful landing with the
landing gear deployed everybody
remaining was successfully evacuated
with
sixty-five people being reported with
injuries and eight of them with serious
injuries including one who is in
critical condition at the time
complicating things however Maui Island
had no infrastructure in place at the
time to handle an emergency of this
magnitude there were only two ambulances
located on the entire island so air
traffic controllers had to call a local
tour company to scrape together several
of their tour vans to come and transport
everybody else that could have fit in
the ambulances to the nearest hospital
the aircraft itself was damaged well
beyond repair and it was written off and
dismantled where it landed and questions
immediately arose as to how exactly a
plane's
roof could just fly off midair so an
investigation by the US National
Transportation Safety Board concluded
that the following is likely what
happened the Boeing 737-200 Series in
question was designed to have a service
life span of 20 years and the plane
involved in this disaster was 19 years
old but that wasn't really the problem
though
the bigger issue was at the 737 200
series was also designed for a life span
of 75,000 flights this is because over
time the number of pressurization and
depressurization cycles that a plane
goes through will begin to weaken his
fuselage over time because this plane
was being used exclusively for short
trips between the various Hawaiian
Islands it had racked up eighty nine
thousand six hundred and eighty flights
over its lifetime which if you know your
math is a lot more than it should have
had metal fatigue and cracking likely
occurred around the rivets of the
fuselage over this time which wasn't
helped by the fact that all of these
flights were taking place in the humid
and salty coastal environment of Hawaii
which likely led to corrosion issues as
well none of these problems were ever
detected by Aloha Airlines so the NTSB
placed the blame for the roof failure
fully on the negligence of the aloha
maintenance and management team after
all if you're running an airline company
you should probably run the math on your
plane's lifespans every so often to
avoid being known as that company that
has the convertible airplane problem now
I understand that the physics of how
airplanes actually work are pretty
complicated in order to get it you need
to understand some essential concepts
like
trust the mechanism of lift or the
contribution that wing-shaped will give
I know all about these things though
because I took brilliant physics of the
everyday course which includes an entire
section about airplane physics now I
know what you're probably thinking
airplanes engines wing shape and lift
mechanics that all sounds pretty
complicated but brilliant is the expert
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overall idea and with the New Year
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started to make 2020 the year when you
improve your grades learn new skills or
just understand a little bit more of how
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