Word: aloha
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Last April 28, a flight attendant was killed and 61 persons were injured when a portion of the fuselage on a Boeing 737 peeled off during an Aloha flight fron Hilo to Honolulu...
Tiny cracks were found later in nearly half the aging Boeing 737 jetliners inspected in the months following the Aloha accident...
Alarms about the airworthiness of aging U.S. airliners, which erupted after part of the roof of a 19-year-old Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 peeled off in midflight last April, sounded again last week. Eastern Flight 251, bound from Rochester to Atlanta, was forced into a terrifying emergency dive, plunging 21,000 ft. in just one minute after a sudden rupture tore a 14-in. hole in the fuselage, depressurizing the cabin. Though the rapid descent caused some of the passengers excruciating ear pain, no one was seriously injured, and the 22-year-old Boeing 727 landed safely in Charleston...
...safe. But Flight 251's harrowing ride rekindled suspicions that metal fatigue induced by changes in cabin pressure during thousands of takeoffs and landings have decreased the margin of safety in commercial aviation. Although older jetliners have been subject to special inspections since 1983, the FAA responded to the Aloha accident by ordering airlines to replace the rivets on 737s built before 1971. Last week the agency announced that a similar order for aging 727s would be issued in January...
...same time, airlines have increased their vigilance against the danger of overstressed, older planes since an incident last April, when the fuselage of a 1969-vintage Aloha Airlines 737 peeled open at 24,000 ft. The average age of the 5,253 planes in the U.S. fleet is 14 years; some 43% of jets were built more than 20 years ago. Another shopping incentive for U.S. carriers: tighter noise regulations. The newest jets are as much as 30% quieter than their predecessors...