The vast majority of aircraft accidents occur during take-off and landing. Nothing serious ever happens at cruising altitude. And if so, then in the past were mostly terrorists or other criminals are the culprits.
But bad weather combined with technical errors can also cause flight disasters, as probably happened when Air France Flight 447 crashed over the Atlantic in 2009. For some of these accidents, the cause remains unclear for a long time, perhaps forever.
This is the case with Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: The machine disappeared from radar in March 2017 and only a few pieces of wreckage were found. One collision like the one that happened over Überlingen in July 2002 and is due to the error of an air traffic controller, is the absolute exception.
short-haul flight
What happened on April 28, 1988, 35 years ago today, during a short-haul flight between two islands in the Hawaiian archipelago also fits into this category. At an altitude of 7,300 meters, the entire cabin ceiling of the Boeing 737 came loose between the cockpit and the leading edge of the wings. 58-year-old flight attendant Clarabelle Lansing was torn out by strong suction. Her body was never found.
She was the only fatality. Flight captain Robert Schornstheimer immediately initiated the descent and landed the machine safely at the nearest airport on the island of Maui 13 minutes later, although one of the two engines also failed. Of the remaining 94 inmates of Aloha Airlines Flight 243 65 were injured, eight of them seriously.
Ultimately, however, many lives were probably saved by this incident:
The Boeing 737 had been quite old. She had because of all of that Short-distance operations From island to island, there were a lot of take-offs and landings that put a strain on the material, including comparatively salty and often humid sea air. The investigation afterwards actually showed that welds and glued areas of corrosion and material fatigue had been severely affected.
As a result, many airlines retired their oldest aircraft and new safety standards and controls were introduced. To this day, this contributes to the fact that aircraft accidents are very rare overall and almost never occur “above the clouds”.
Read all the episodes of the “Tagesrückspiegel” column that have been published so far here.
