This Airplane Lost its Roof at 24,000 ft | What Happened Next? | Dhruv Rathee

Hello, friends! On 28th April 1988, around 1pm, in Hawaii, the Aloha Airlines flight 243 was about to take off. It was a beautiful day.

A sunny day. And most of the passengers were there to enjoy their holidays. In case you don't know about Hawaii, it is a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean, and is a part of America.

They are beautiful islands and their capital is Honolulu. This flight was actually travelling from Hilo to Honolulu. Hilo is the southernmost island of Hawaii.

It wasn't a huge distance. It was a 35-minute flight. A routine flight.

The Aloha Airlines is a local Hawaiian airline which connects the various islands. Because of the short distances, this specific plane had already flown 8 times since morning. It had gone on 3 different round trips.

But this wasn't unusual. It's normal for such planes. Everything was going as it should.

Passengers board, the doors were closed, and at exactly 1:25 PM, the flight took off. There was one unusual thing though. When one of the passengers was boarding the plane, before entering the door, she saw that the rivetted sheets that make the body of the plane, one of those sheets had a little crack, but she didn't tell anyone about it thinking that it won't make a difference, since this was a reputable airline, and the plane used to fly regularly.

Assuming that it was inspected regularly. And that someone would have noticed if there were any problems. She though that it was inconsequential.

But no one could have imagined how devastating this was going to be. Only after 10-15 minutes of the plane's take-off, the air hostesses brought in the trolleys and started serving drinks to the passengers. The seat belt sign wasn't turned off yet, because it is usually turned off only when the plane reaches cruising altitude.

And for this plane, the cruising altitude was 24,000 feet. There were three air hostesses on the flight, serving drinks to the passengers. And just 20 minutes after the take off, the flight reached its cruising altitude of 24,000 feet.

And as soon as it reached this height, there was a big blast. The passengers heard a loud bang and there was a sudden rapid decompression. People have trouble breathing.

Things went flying all around. Total chaos and terrible confusion. No one could understand what was happening.

Some passengers looked around and saw that the plane's roof and surrounding walls were missing. They could see the sky above them. What happened was that about 35 m² of the front of the plane's body had disintegrated and blown away.

What usually happens is that the air is always pressurised in cabins in a plane. So that we can breathe normally. Otherwise, at a height of 24,000 feet, the atmospheric pressure is very low, the air is so thin that we cannot breathe normally at that height.

That is why aeroplanes have their own pressurisation system which regulates the air by pumping it. If for some reason this system breaks down and the aeroplane keeps flying at the same altitude then in case of this emergency, those oxygen masks will drop down. You must have heard about this in the safety briefings, "In the event of loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will drop.

" These oxygen masks, typically contain an oxygen supply for about 15-20 minutes, during which time the pilot has to get the plane to descend to an altitude where people can breathe normally. At a height below 10,000 feet. Now, in our story, what happened in Flight 243 is that, the oxygen masks did drop, but the oxygen mask system was not working.

Due to the plane's roof being blown away, the oxygen mask system was completely destroyed. People were concerned about hypoxia. The condition in which if your body does not get sufficient oxygen you can get unconscious and eventually, lose your life.

Within seconds, people started feeling dizzy and confused. In such cases, it takes only 1-2 minutes to lose consciousness. Michelle Honda, an air hostess, was near Row 15 during the explosion.

She tried contacting the cockpit through the intercom. But there was no response from the other side. The second air hostess, CB Lansing, was serving a drink to a passenger near Row 5.

When the roof of the plane blew apart, she went flying out of the plane. Their third colleague, Jane Sato, was near Row 2. She fell to the floor after being hit by a flying luggage.

There was commotion all around. When Michelle didn't get any answer from the pilots, she went to each and every passenger to ask, if they knew how to fly a plane. This scared the passengers further.

They were being asked to fly the plane. This made them wonder about the pilots. Without trained pilots, they were doomed to crash.

She reached near the cockpit by crawling on the floor. There she saw her colleague Jane's head was bleeding. When she tried to look inside the cockpit, she couldn't see anything.

The cockpit's view was completely blocked. There were only a few precious minutes after which all of them would lose consciousness and d! e.

But apart from hypoxia, these passengers had to bear strong winds. Winds as fast as nearly 500 kmph speed were blowing at them. It was difficult to keep their eyes open.

And the temperature was at -45°C at this height. Even if there was oxygen supply somehow, it wasn't possible to survive long in that cold. Because most of the passengers were wearing shorts and t-shirts.

Hawaii is a tropical place where people go to see beaches and jungles. There is no snow here. So no passenger was prepared for this temperature.

Michelle was the only air hostess in her senses. She kept trying to contact the pilots. "Can anyone hear me?

" But there was no answer. Among all these dangers, the good news was that the pilots were actually alive. And not just alive, the pilots were in much better condition than the passengers.

Their oxygen masks were thankfully working. 44-year-old Captain Robert Schomstheimer was in command. A highly experienced pilot working for Aloha Airlines for 11 years.

With him was the 36-year-old First Officer, Mimi Tompkins. When the explosion happened, both of them felt the shock. And when they turned around to see, they saw that the plane's roof was missing as well as the cockpit door.

There was debris all around, but both of them immediately got to work. First of all, they wore their oxygen masks and considering the situation, they decide to go for an emergency descend. They flew the plane at the speed for 500 km per hour, and descended at a speed of 4,100 feet per minute.

But the time constraint wasn't only for the descent of the plane. They had to face another problem, bigger than this. It was found that due to this incident, the nose of the plane, the front part in which they were sitting, was drooping down a bit, only by about 1 metre.

The floor of the plane was the only thing holding the cockpit and cabin together. If they kept flying so for a long time, the two parts might break apart. Mimi Tompkins contacted Honolulu and informed them about their situation.

They were told to land the plane in Maui instead of Honolulu, since it was closer. At 1:48 PM, she contacted Maui tower and informed them about the situation. It was about 3 minutes since the plane's roof had flown away.

But thankfully, the plane was at 14,000 feet. At this height, it wasn't difficult for most passengers to breathe. And since it had descended within 3 minutes, most people didn't lose their consciousness and at least the risk of hypoxia was over.

Mimi Tompkins contacted Maui Airport and told them to keep all emergency services ready. Anything could happen. Firefighters and rescue vehicles were at standby on the runway.

Everyone was waiting for this plane to land. A minute later, the plane had reached the height of 10,000 feet. When another problem arose.

There was a 10,000-foot mountain in front of them. The Haleakala Summit. This mountain was between the plane and Maui airport.

Captain Roberts slowed down the plane. 210 knots, 200 knots, 170 knots. They keep slowing down.

They fly it as slowly as possible. Any slower and it would be difficult to control the flight. Maintaining this speed of 170 knots, they navigate the plane between two islands.

The plane evades the mountain and turned towards the airport. At this point, the passengers could understand the situation better. They finally realised that the plane was flown by a pilot; not only was the pilot alive but he was flying the plane expertly.

As the plane went towards the runway, Mimi Tompkins deployed the landing gear. There should be 3 sets of wheels, 2 on the rear and 1 on the front. The ones at the rear are called the main gear; the indicator showed that the main gear was successfully released.

But the nose gear, the wheels at the front, weren't releasing properly. Now, technically speaking, it is possible to land without the front wheels, the nose gear. This is known as Belly Landing.

And it is done during emergency cases. But in this specific case, where the middle portion of the plane was so weak, and the roof was already missing. The pilots were afraid to attempt a belly landing because then the plane would crash definitely.

And if something happened to the fuel tank there could even be a blast. "This airplane, and the condition it was in, because it didn't have a nose gear, because when the nose touch down on the runway, it would've broken the airplane apart, therefore, breaking probably the fuel tanks apart. Which could lead to a very dramatic fire and explosion.

" But there was no other option there was nothing else they could do. The pilots decide to attempt landing like that. As soon as the runway was visible the passengers were holding on for the landing.

Some started praying. Others were hugging the people around them. This could very well be the last time they saw each other.

Most of the passengers were still terribly scared. All for a justified reason. As the plane descended, it had started moving side to side.

The pilots realised that their left engine had failed. They tried to manually restart the engine, but unfortunately, they couldn't restart it. By this time, the emergency services were prepared on the runway.

Firefighters, ambulances, evacuation teams everyone was preparing for the worst situation. Trying to minimise the damage. If you want to minimise damage to yourself while browsing the internet, the sponsor of this video, Nord VPN, will help you with that.

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