I was on that flight - 3/28/88 Aloha 243 from Honolulu to Hilo, but we ended up in Maui. At least we got there. One FA was sucked out the top of the plane, another was caught by a guy a couple rows in front of me and he held on to her until we got down to a lower level and stabilized. What chaos. I guess the masks fell, but there was too much commotion in the cabin to do anything. I remember the accident report made the tower sound like they called all the emergency crews out, but in fact they were having an argument with the city about costs and only had one fire truck. The FO told us later that the tower asked if she "really" needed an emergency crew. Pilot was an old navy guy, I recall, and without his skill we wouldn't be here. That's why I like my pilots old and gray.

The video that was on the news came from a passenger that had a video cam. Today, everyone would have one, but not in 1988. I had a copy, but it's worn out. After we got off the plane, we were standing around and this guy was filming. He was panning back and forth across the plane, with its missing roof, then came across a pretty girl in a short skirt. The camera stopped, backed up to the girl, went down and up, then panned back to the plane. Geez, that was 18 years ago. I also remember learning that Boeing stamped a number on the fuselage on those planes, and this one was something like 278. And planes #277 and 279 were flying the airbus route between Calgary and Edmonton for Canadian at that time. I was living in Calgary, so that's when I started driving to Edmonton rather than flying.