Aloha Airlines Flight 601
Boeing 737 330 · Accident: aircraft loading event before flight
From Lanai Airport (LNY) to Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA15LA011
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Boeing 737 330
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N301KH
- Operator
- Aloha Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Lanai Airport (LNY), Lanai, HITo Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL), Honolulu, HI
- Aircraft age
- About 19 years (built 1995)
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 121: Air Carrier
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Prior to flight
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Aircraft loading event
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft handling/service
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Aloha Air Cargo flew to an out-station with none of their personnel located there. The decision was made to limit the number of Additional Crew Members (ACMs) due to concerns about the return flight's weight and balance. With the choice of taking the load planner or the mechanic, Aloha Air Cargo made the decision to take the mechanic, which was against the company loading procedures since the mechanic was not trained on cargo securing nor were there any approved personnel at the destination to assist with loading and securing the empty pallets.
Since the load planner would not be making the flight, he discussed with the mechanic on how to load the empty pallets for the return flight, which was to load and lock each empty pallet in their original loaded location. However, while in LNY, Aloha Air Cargo dispatch recommended that all the pallets be placed in position 9 due to concerns about weight and balance. It is unknown if the mechanic tried to contact the load planner to discuss the new configuration.
The cargo floor locks will only secure the bottom pallet when engaged properly and not the stacked pallets. The decision was made to secure the stacked pallets with a cargo strap which was insufficient to keep the pallets from moving. Even though it was stated that during the loading process that the locks were "up" and locked, when the Marshaller entered the airplane he observed the locks between station 8 and 9 were down/unlocked. In addition, there was damage found to the right hand forward and aft locking mechanisms, implying these locks were used but failed due to overload.
Probable cause
the improper loading and securing of the cargo pallets, which shifted on departure, resulting in substantial damage to the aft pressure bulkhead.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DCA15LA011
- Event ID
- 20141017X44013
- Case number
- DCA15LA011
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 2014-10-17.
- API snapshot SHA-256: dfb4d202dd7ed930178d4b002ec1fcec51ee1f2a96ecc5aa454e68e0bc3b288f; retrieved 2026-09-16T01:51:45.088Z.