On April 28, 1988, Aloha Airlines Flight 243 took off from Hilo International Airport in Hawaii, bound for Honolulu. The flight took less than an hour. Weather conditions were ideal, but minutes after takeoff, a powerful boom rocked the plane. The roof of the first-class cabin suddenly lifted off the ground. Passengers and crew panicked. Would they be ejected? Would they be able to make an emergency landing? Would the plane disintegrate at any moment? Learn the rest of this terrifying story and much more!

Flight 243: Roof Collapse Incident
Flight 243 was carrying 89 passengers and six crew members, including Captain Robert Schornstheimer and First Officer Madeline Tompkins. They had more than 10,000 combined flight hours on this Boeing 737. The 19-year-old aircraft had about 10 years of service remaining. Earlier that day, it had completed three uneventful round-trip flights between Honolulu, Hilo, Maui, and Kauai.

No abnormalities were found during the pre-departure inspection, and the aircraft recently passed Boeing’s technical inspection process and received an airworthiness directive. However, a passenger noticed a crack in the aircraft’s fuselage but did not report it to ground crew. After completing standard inspections, the aircraft took off without incident and began its ascent.

At 7,000 meters, a massive boom was heard, followed by a deafening roar of wind. Tompkins, the co-pilot, saw debris flying into the cockpit. The cockpit door disappeared, and the view from the cockpit to business class revealed blue sky instead of the ceiling. A section of the plane’s left side wall ruptured, causing a decompression explosion and 500 km/h winds that ripped off the roof.

Crisis in flight