Fuselage Tears Open but 727 Lands Safely

An Eastern Airlines jet carrying 110 people tore open at 31,000 feet Monday, causing loss of cabin pressure and forcing an emergency landing, authorities said. Two minor injuries were reported.

A Federal Aviation Administration official said that cracks were found on the plane’s fuselage in two inspections in 1986 and 1987.

Bobbie Mardis of the FAA’s safety data branch in Oklahoma City said also that mechanical problems had forced unscheduled landings of the aircraft on two other occasions since 1985.

The Boeing 727, en route to Atlanta from Rochester, N. Y., landed here with a hole in the fuselage that developed when it was 50 miles, or a few minutes’ flying time, north of Charleston, officials said.

Cabin Pressure Lost

The jet, carrying 104 passengers and a crew of six, lost cabin pressure but there was no other sudden trouble, Jack Barker of the FAA in Atlanta said.

The opening in the fuselage was “about a 14-inch-square hole,” he said. “Those things start with a crack and end up as a hole.”

There was no immediate indication of what caused the tear near the top of the jet, which was about 20 years old, Barker said.

The passengers put on oxygen masks and the pilot took the plane down to 10,000 feet, an altitude that requires no pressurization, Barker said.

Two passengers were taken to the Charleston Area Medical Center for treatment of minor injuries, a hospital spokesman said.

“When you felt cold air, right away you knew the outside was coming in,” said passenger Elaine Davie, 40, of Rochester, describing the sudden blast of air that whipped through the cabin when the hole blew open. Her ears still ached from popping as the plane quickly descended, she said.

Sound of a Big ‘Pop’

Passenger Sam Piazza, 55, of Boca Raton, Fla., said he and his wife at first thought there had been an explosion. “We were cruising along and you could hear the rush of the wind and the pitch of the wind, and all of a sudden you could hear a big ‘pop!’ ” he said.

The roof of a 19-year-old Boeing 737 tore off at 24,000 feet during an Aloha Airlines flight on April 28, killing one person and injuring 61. That accident was blamed on cracking from repeated pressurization and depressurization of the cabin. It prompted a federal investigation into the condition of the aging fleet of jets, and the FAA ordered airlines to replace rivets believed to have caused cracks.

Karen Ceremsak of Eastern Airlines in Miami said that Eastern bought the jet new in the late 1960s and it had been maintained according to FAA guidelines. “It had an inspection of the crown in September--that’s the whole top area from the cockpit to the tail,” she said.