If you haven’t heard about Flight 243 on April 28th, 1988, you soon will… And if you’re frightened of flying, I recommend you shut this tab right now. Let’s get started if you’re still here. Flight 243 took off from Hilo International Airport in Hawaii. The flight is just a little more than an hour away. The weather was perfect, and the flying conditions were ideal, but only a few minutes after takeoff, a tremendous BOOM surprised everyone on board.

The roof of the first class cabin just blew away, pulled away from the jet in a matter of seconds, with no warning. Everyone panicked and lost their heads in terror and anxiety. Would they be able to land in an emergency? Were they going to be sucked into the blue sky? Would the whole aircraft suddenly fall apart at any moment? Stay tuned to find out what occurred…

Aboard April 28th, 1988, there were six crew members, including the captain and first officer, and 89 passengers on Flight 243. Captain Robert Schornstheimer and First Officer Madeline Tompkins had over 10,000 hours of flying experience, so they understood what they were doing, but they had never seen a plane’s roof torn off. The aircraft had previously completed three round-trip trips from Honolulu to Hilo, Maui, and Kauai that day.

Nothing out of the ordinary occurred, and the aircraft had just passed a Boeing service bulletin and an airworthiness directive from two different inspectors. On paper, everything seemed to be in order, but when passengers boarded the jet, one of them saw a crack in the aircraft’s door, but thought that the crew was already aware of it and said nothing. The aircraft resumed its ascension, soaring higher and higher, but it wasn’t until the pilots began leveling out the jet at roughly 24,000 feet that they heard it. A boom!