KAHULUI, HAWAII, APRIL 29 -- Aloha Airlines flight attendant Clarabelle Lansing was in the
wedding anniversary trip to Hawaii.
"She had stopped and told us this was the last call. We were going to
be descending. And then, whoosh! She was gone. Their hands just touched
when it happened."
A gaping hole had opened the roof of the Boeing 737-200 jet with an
explosive sound as pressurized air in the cabin blasted into the
atmosphere, apparently pulling Lansing, 55, to her death, and exposing
the aircraft and 94 others aboard to a tornado of wind that quickly
peeled back the top of the cabin from the cockpit to the wing, one
witness said, "like a banana."
Joy Flanigan, in seat 2-C next to what once had been a window, fell
forward onto the tray table, her head and face cut by flying metal and
flailing wires.
"Her head was laying down on a tray table with blood all over," her
husband said. "I could see the sky. I could see the ocean. I was scared
to death the wind was going to rip her away. I grabbed her two arms and
told her I loved her. I was afraid we were going to crash."
But pilot Robert Schornstheimer, 42, a 12-year veteran with the
airline, unable to know anything except that there was a tremendous loss
of cabin pressure, was diving to 6,000 feet and fighting to keep Flight
243 airborne as he headed for an emergency landing, which he
successfully made at Kahului Airport on Maui Thursday.
"I couldn't believe it," Flanigan said Friday at the Maui Beach
Hotel, where he was recuperating and waiting for his wife to be released
from Maui Memorial Hospital.
"I remember saying, 'Joy, my God, the guy is still flying this
plane.' There were wires hanging all around, wrapped around me,"
Flanigan said. "I remember yelling 'I'm being electrocuted.' I really
thought I was being burned alive."
Flanigan, his wife and 59 other passengers and crew were treated at
the hospital after the emergency landing in Kahului at 1:58 p.m. The jet
was miraculously in one piece.
Dale Bringleson, owner of Island Aeromotive, watched the landing from
his company hangar at Kahului Airport. "He did an excellent job of
flying," he said of Schornstheimer. "Because the upper structure was
gone, there was a possibility of the plane buckling. If he hadn't been
real careful, it could have busted in two."
Thirteen persons, including Joy Flanigan were admitted to the
hospital overnight, and seven were still there late today. One remains
in critical condition, according to Dr. Charles Mitchell, director of
emergency services.
The Coast Guard cutter Cape Corwin from Maui and helicopters from
Barber's Point Coast Guard Air Station on Oahu searched the waters
between Maui and Oahu for any sign of the missing flight attendant and
for debris from the aircraft.
One passenger, Eric Becklin of Honolulu, an astronomer, was sitting
three seats from the back of the aircraft when "all of a sudden, I heard
a loud noise, a bang, but not an explosion, and felt a strong pressure
change. I looked up front and saw the front of the top left of the
airplane disintegrating, just going apart, pieces of it flying away. It
started with a hole about a yard wide, and it just kept coming apart.
"I thought it was going to fall apart before he could land it,"
Becklin said.
"One stewardess was walking up and down and telling people to fasten
their safety belts. She tried to call the pilot on the intercom and
couldn't get through, and then came back and asked if there was anyone
aboard who could fly the plane."
If there had been, they would have had to have walked through a
30-foot stretch of open cabin to get to the cockpit.
"There was no warning at all," Becklin said. "It put a whole new
perspective on the word 'sudden.' I felt an incredible sadness that I
wouldn't see my family again, but the next instant all of the people in
the back of the plane looked at each other and there was this incredible
wave of hope as the plane continued forward. We all started talking
instantly, babbling, that the pilot was going to be able to land the
plane."