Boeing 737-297, Aloha Airlines Flight Engineering Failure Analysis

Israfil M.G. Haniff

Mechanical Engineering Department
Sacramento State University, California, United States of America
Professor: Rabindranath Bandy


Keywords: Fracture Mechanics, Hawaiian Airline, Crack Propagation, Engineering
Failure Analysis

Abstract
Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM) is essential to the Aviation Industry
since in the past we may have over looked a crack on the fuselage of an aircraft and
deemed it safe for it fly. A research and discussion will be administered as far analyzing
what possible could have went wrong with Flight 243, Aloha Airline and how LEFM may
be considered for service related failures. [ still need to develop]

1.0 Introduction

Aloha Airlines, Flight 243, Boeing 737-297, flying on April 28,1988 from Hilo,
Hawaii to Honolulu. The weather was nice and there were no advisories. The aircraft
had previously flown three round trips from Honolulu to Hilo, Kauai and Maui. On board
was the captain, Forty-four year old Robert Schornstheimer, a highly experienced pilot,
who had 8,500 hours under his belt, 6,700 hours of which were in the Boeing 737. And
his first officer, thirty-six year old, Madeline Tompkins with over 8,000 hours of
experience along with their flight crew, and 89 passengers. After departing and
reaching a flight altitude of about 24,000 feet (7300m), a small section on the left side of
the roof ruptured, creating a whooshing sound. The resulting explosive
decompression tore off a large section of the roof, which was the entire top half of the
aircraft skin, extending from just behind the cockpit to the front wing area shown in
Figures 1 and 2.







Figure.1: Damaged section 43 of Aloha Airlines Flight 243


The aircraft landed safely, and officials noted that there were 65 injuries and one fatality
a crew member, Clarabelle C.B. Lansing that was unfortunately sucked out of the
aircraft while it was decompressing at the time of the explosion in mid-flight. Another
Picture is shown of the event is shown in Figure 2.



Figure.2: Section 43, Boeing 737, Aloha Airlines Flight 243, 04/29/1988 [2]


2.0 Analyzing the Fuselage

The fuselage of the Boeing 737 aircraft is divided into four sections 41, 43, 46
and 48 shown on Figure 2 [1]. All of the mentioned sections meet at a butt joint. At
the butt joint is where these panel sections are bonded and over time without proper
inspection these bonds can disbond and lead to improper load distributions, particularly
the shear force applied on the rivets which causes knife edge cracks to form. Moreover,
the dominant cause of failure is essentially due to corrosion as the mechanism for
failure, better known as the first domino of the problem. Because of corrosion, the
formation of cracks is further intensified since corrosion leads to surface inclusions,
voids, better known as pitting. These defects would in general lead to joint failure and
structural complications.
Sections 41, 43 and 46 shown in Figure 3 are areas where cabin air pressure is
controlled and maintained by the jet engines in the aircraft. Through cyclic
pressurization and depressurization of the fuselage, the pitted, corroded, cracks open
and close cyclically until the crack grows to its critical unstable length and fracture
without further warning.
Pariss equation help analyze the number of cyclic loads it would take for a crack,
of an initial length, to reach the critical crack length size for the crack to be unstable.




Figure.3: The anatomy of the internal structure of the Boeing 737 [2]

To further understand what really happened we would have to further examine the lap
joint shown in Figure 4. The entire fuselage is constituent primarily by skin frames and
stringers. The Lap joints is where the skin panels overlap each other by 3 inches. This
area is cold bonded and riveted with three rows of counter sunk rivets.






Figure 4: Lap Joint Design, Knife edge cracks form around rivet holes when the Bond
disbands.


https://stonybrook.digication.com/weixiangfang/Additional_Material_and_Failure_Case_
Study





References

[1] "Aloha Airlines Flight 243." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 24 Apr.
2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243#Maintenance_program

[2] Fang, Weixiang. " ." Digication e-Portfolio. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.
<https://stonybrook.digication.com/weixia