Another Hawaiian Airlines Incident: Emergency Landing/FAA Investigation

It has been a crazy week thus far for Hawaiian Airlines, and the Hawaii bellwether carrier hasn’t gotten a break yet. This reported incident follows Sunday’s completely unrelated Hawaiian Airlines mass injury turbulence event and yesterday’s announcement of an NTSB investigation into that problem.

Flight 230 was first delayed 7 hours, then this.

Yesterday, Hawaiian Flight 230 was scheduled to depart Kahului Maui at 12:40 PM for the short 91-mile flight to Kona. But that didn’t happen. Instead, the flight was delayed for unknown reasons; we’re assuming mechanical due to the reported nature of the emergency landing. The plane finally departed Maui at 7:23 PM. But the trouble wasn’t over yet.

Hawaiian Airlines declares emergency landing at Kona.

The FAA said about this latest issue, “Hawaiian Airlines Flight 230, a Boeing 717-200, landed safely at Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keahole in Hawaii around 8:15 p.m. local time Monday, Dec. 19, after the crew declared an emergency due to a hydraulic issue. The flight departed Kahului Airport. The FAA will investigate.”

Following a safe landing, the airplane was stopped at the end of the runway. It was later towed to the terminal.

Airline emergency landings in Hawaii.

An emergency landing is typically an early landing made by an airliner due to any emergency related to the safety and operation of the plane or involving any critical issue of the crew or passengers that warrants early termination of a flight.

Flights operating under air traffic control receive priority over all other aircraft operations when an emergency is declared. Such was the case with Hawaiian Airlines Flight 230.

Two extreme examples of Hawaii emergency landings include Aloha Flight 243 and United Airlines Flight 811.

We’ll update you with any further information on this event.

Image credit: Flightaware

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17 thoughts on “Another Hawaiian Airlines Incident: Emergency Landing/FAA Investigation”

  1. Last night (12/22) HA 16 from HNL to San Diego was diverted to LAX. The plane then took off this morning 12/23 and landed in San Diego delaying the outbound HA 15 to HNL by 4+ hrs. Anyone know why it was diverted?

  2. Seat belts should be on at all times and especially when the seat belt sign is on. It appears many did not have seat belt on and that is a problem. This is not an issue for blaming the airline, it is a behavior issue for those who do not like to follow directions or rules.

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  3. I was on the flight reported above, came into Maui from Sacramento for a 2 hr layover. Weather was awful and delayed earlier flights, which I think was a compounding problem for later flights. I think around 1pm there were two power outages that took down the HAL servers because the PA system and departure/arrival screens stopped working and employees didn’t know what order flights would be arriving or leaving anymore and we’re boarding flights depending on whenever planes arrived. Announcements were made by yelling out from the gate, which was extremely hard to hear given the size of the room and number of people there. I’m sure some people missed their flights just because they didn’t know it was boarding.

    1. As for the flight itself, it felt like we were flying low but figured it was part of avoiding weather and the short distance. One of the pilots announced that they had a mechanical fault and that we would be making an emergency landing at Kona. He said they still had full control of the plane but that upon landing we would be met by emergency personnel to inspect the plane and tow it in, and that they had to circle south of kona and run checklists before landing. Everyone was pretty calm until they lowered the landing gear, when there was a huge bang that shook the floor and caused the plane to start to vibrate? Very tense until we touched down and stopped since we weren’t sure if we still had landing gear…

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  4. I’m guessing the rolling delays all started with the damaged aircraft from Arizona. It’s the holidays and people want to travel and do not want the inconvenience of broken aircraft. I am sure the workers are all working very hard to get everyone to their destinations safely.

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  5. HA67 Oakland to Lihue was canceled today. I’ve got no clue how to find out why. It makes me nervous as that’s our flight in a couple weeks. If anyone can shed some light on the “why” I’d appreciate it! Thanks for all your work BOH!

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  6. We flew that flight on Dec 8 and same plane back to HNL on Dec13. Was this he EwaEwa named plane? She did just fine last week.

    1. Aloha,
      On 10/29/ we departed SMF to OGG on a 7 am flight (can’t recall the #). The flight was pleasant & uneventful until approach at Kahului, when we were waved off 3 or 4 times without comment from pilot or crew. After the 3rd fly-by, passengers were glancing nervously at one another. We ultimately landed safely, but concerned. Is it policy for crew not to comment on such irregularities? Was it an irregularity? I appreciate any info you you may be able to provide. Mahalo!

  7. My days of Hawaii travel are sadly over. Used to look forward to it but with everything going on today and the clown shows everywhere the enjoyment is gone. Plane issues, airport issues Overpriced, nickel and dimed, long lines subpar service, fees, crime, lack of aloha, flus, Covid etc. I had a good 20 year run. It’s like seeing vanhalen in 1983 and going back and watching them five years ago. Wish I had just kept the 1983 memories at $12 a ticket and an $8 tee shirt

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    1. Florida is still nice. I rather enjoy it. Coming back to the West is usually when the crap show starts.

      Let’s see… crime is down, haven’t seen a homeless camp in 2 years, we didn’t lose our minds over masks and Covid, businesses stayed open, employment is high, have never had to wait for a table due to staffing.

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      1. Sadly forced to move over summer from Ewa Beach … been so homesick but landed in FL …hate traffic here and my kids and I miss HI beaches especially the waves along with amazing beauty and Ohana we love there but we’ve met some great folks here and blessed to still have beach and beauty unique to here. And seriously Tampa is so beautiful and such a clean welcoming city! I was quite surprised!

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      2. For every one person that comments here that did leave a light year right now there’s going to be hundreds more. It’s the air that you breathe. I spent 40 years in Hawaii my home state however the asthma got me it’s getting all so many children and it’s life-threatening. We also came to Florida. We figured well at least if we can’t be home in Hawaii this is the next best place.

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      3. Except for the 40% of hurricanes that now slam into FL, and the insane tidal flooding, and the $500 million (and counting) in lost real-estate value in Miami-Dade county alone, and the rest of the country subsidizing too much of the damage — sure, sounds great!

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