Everything appeared normal on United Airlines Flight 811. En route from Honolulu to Auckland, New Zealand, the Boeing 747, carrying 336 passengers and a crew of 18, had climbed to 22,000 ft. over the Pacific. As the flight attendants were preparing to roll out the beverage carts, passengers in the forward section heard a hissing noise. Within seconds came a loud thump of bursting metal and a roar of cold air. "It was like a dream," said passenger Gary Garber later. "A section of the plane wasn't there any longer."
In its place was an immense hole, open to the cold night sky. A 10 ft.-by-40 ft. section of the right forward fuselage had simply blown away, and nine passengers who had been seated in three rows in the business-class section were swept out to their deaths.
A howling wind cascaded through the cabin so fast that one woman's earrings were pulled from her ears. Oxygen masks popped free (some people later complained that several oxygen compartments failed to open). "It was a nightmare," said passenger Dalenya Poliszcuk. A shower of ice cubes from the beverage carts and all sorts of personal possessions filled the air. "There were shoes blown back from the front of the plane," reported passenger Andrew Gannon. "A stewardess went flying, and another one tried to calm everybody down."
New Zealand schoolteacher Beverley Nisbet, summoning a remarkable presence of mind, unleashed her camera and snapped photos of her fellow passengers as they crouched and prepared for the worst. Remembers Roger White, who was ) seated in Row 18, not far from the business-class section: "The walls seemed to be popping in on everybody. I kind of got resigned to the fact that I was going to die. I put my head down and told my wife I loved her. She told me she loved me." Said Jack Kennedy: "I thought everything was going up pretty quickly, I tell you. I had my two sons on board, one just in front of me and the other separated just a little away. He said, 'Well, it looks as though this is it, Dad.' " Added David Birrell, who was sitting about 10 ft. from the hole: "You're watching the clouds and the moon and the stars, and you're waiting for the sea."
Miraculously, the plane never hit the sea. Though both starboard engines were disabled, probably by debris, veteran pilot David Cronin, 58, skillfully reduced altitude and nudged his crippled craft along the 100-mile journey back to Honolulu International Airport. As he touched down at 2:33 a.m., one hour after the plane had taken off, everybody aboard burst into applause and then slid swiftly down the escape chutes. Said passenger Bruce Lampert: "I can tell you that was a long flight back." Afterward, a dozen people were hospitalized.