febuary 24 1989 a united boeing 747-100 departed honolulu with 337 passengers and 15 crew for auckland new zelland just 2 mounths after lockerbie the crew where a bit more on edge. the flight was more loaded than usual due to an issue on an earlier flight out of la. captain dave cronin is in command on the flight that night first officer al slater and flight enginneer mark thomas (who the captain hadn’t flown with before). the crew select 33 000 feet (10000 meters as their cruise altitude) due to weather. as the plane climbs the air preasure difference is much bigger passengers start hearing a noise at 23000 feet that sounds like a grinding noise then something comes off the plane and the no 3 engine is damaged. a flight attendant is stuck to the stair well the cargo door and a section of the plane has come off. the crew suspected a bomb and the noise was increditable and a lot of things where being sucked out. the crew start an emergency decent and request return to honolulu the oxygen system is destroyed by the explosion. and the fast decent has people very nervous. within two minutes they are decending through 15500 feet. the pilots tell the flight attendants to prepare for an evacuation but the damage to the no 3 engine is too severe to keep it running but the generator is not working either. the crew decide to dump fuel to lower their weight for landing and have control problems. the flight attendants notice seats are mising which has lead to 9 passengers being sucked out. but as they return to honolulu the situation is getting worse and the crew realise the no 4 engine is also failing. the pilots report the current problems to atc as they are 60 miles from the airport. the flight enginneer decides to go and check the damage while the captain pushes the damaged engine to full power with the good ones this backfires as the no 4 engine catches fire which the pilots don’t know. the flight enginneer showing himself as the flight atteandants releaved. the first officer realises the no 4 engine is on fire so they shut it down the flight enginneer reports the hole. among the victims is leigh cambell who was just in front of the cargo door was among the dead his parents will play a key roll in the investigation. the crew are worried about the speed knowing they have a very small range of safe speed without stalling or the hole being worse the crew are even preparing to ditch the plane in the middle of the night in the pacific ocean. there are photos of the situation taken by a passenger. at 4000 feet they finally see lights of hawaii a little bit of it this gives the crew hope. at honolulu all flights are diverted so the plane can land safely. the crew start to slow down the plane but with the flaps damaged they will still have to land fast. the pilots spot the runway and are cleared to land on runway 8left. the crew know they only have one chance to land safely and they are overweight. some of the flight attendants are nervous about the landing gear but it is down. the plane lands safely even though fast and stops the 343 people are able to evacuate normally with only a few more injuries. the pilots are stunned at the hole in the plane. the passengers and crew are releaved to be alive but the victims relatives are a bit upset part of the problem is united said there where no new zellanders involved which is weird as more than 9 new zellanders where on the flight likely. the cambells fly to hawaii and see the plane. it is clear that there bodies of the dead where sucked into the engines. the cambells have their own investigation into the accident the ntsb also investigate the accident which will take a while to get their report the ntsb make the mistake of letting people take paper work from the press table so the cambells get more then they need or where told they could get take. it is the clear the problem is with the cargo door design with the locking mechanism which had been known to cause problems over a decade before the accident. kevin cambell shows how the problem with the locking design. the cambells also find an incident with a panam flight two years earlier should have lead to alarm luckily no one was killed in the panam one. boeing claimed it was the united ground crew at fault. boeing asked the airlines to do a test that only damaged the planes and proved the cambells right. the wiring was responsable for the accident but the ntsb have the wrong idea on the cause saying it was a mishandling of the door. not only did the faa know about the problem but gave them too much time to fix it (18 mounths) after the accident it was cut to 30 days. the evidence they needed the cargo door was in the ocean was lifted up and the cambells cause was right but the ntsb don’t redo the report until a minor accident in 1991 forced their hand the cambells get a univesity scolarship in leighs name.
next time delays a storm and almost every type of weather that you don’t want can an md-80 land.
Harrison’s world 