Hawaiian Airlines offered to pay passenger’s bills

LIHU’E – Hawaiian Airlines claims it offered in writing to pay the medical

expenses of a Kapa’a woman after the company found out she was injured during a

Hawaiian hard landing at Lihu’e Airport in mid-June.

Keoni Wagner, airlines

spokesman, said Wednesday’s article in The Garden Island about the incident was

the first he learned about Vicki Stofleth’s desire to be compensated for the

credits she lost from not being able to continue commuting to classes at the

University of Hawai’i-Manoa.

Still, he reiterated Wednesday that Hawaiian

has no doctors’ diagnoses from any of the passengers claiming injuries from

the hard landing of flight 193, which federal investigators say did substantial

damage to the DC-9 aircraft and put the plane out of service for around two

months.

Stofleth, though, said yesterday she faxed medical information to

Hawaiian three days after the June 14 incident, and that the company has surely

received other medical information she has sent them relating to her

injuries.

In fact, Hawaiian continues to pay for her physical therapy,

offered her $15 to pay for her initial treatment co-payment, and also offered

her 10,000 Hawaiian frequent-flyer miles.

Wagner said the miles were given

as a sign of goodwill and an apology for her inconvenience.

Both of the

passengers from Kaua’i who say they suffered injuries during the landing, and

are still undergoing physical therapy for the injuries almost three months

after the flight, said the plane left Honolulu about 15 minutes

late.

Everyone acknowledges the DC-9, with 134 passengers and five crew,

was full and that it arrived in Lihu’e 14 minutes after its scheduled touchdown

time.

The Hawaiian Airlines Web page states the planes used for

inter-island travel hold 133 passengers.

Stofleth, who had been traveling

to Honolulu daily for classes, said she didn’t brace herself for a hard

touchdown because she was certain the pilot would abort the landing and circle

for another try.

That is not an uncommon occurrence at Lihu’e Airport.

But the first officer, who the National Transportation Safety Board said

in its preliminary report of the incident was handling the controls, landed the

plane, anyway.

There is evidence from the NTSB’s investigation that the

tail section of the plane scraped the runway at touchdown. Wagner confirmed

that resulting damage grounded the plane for almost two months after Hawaiian

discovered it at the end of the night’s flying.

The plane returned to

Honolulu with a nearly full load of passengers, then flew passengers at least

to Kona and back before its night was over.

Wagner Wednesday said Hawaiian

hadn’t received any information from Wilcox Memorial Hospital in Lihu’e that

its emergency room treated four or five people claiming injuries from the

landing, as a North Shore passenger said she was told by hospital employees

when she went in for treatment the night of the landing.

“We did not hear

from the hospital, which is highly unusual,” Wagner said. “Whenever something

like that happens, they send us at least a report for the bill.

“My legal

department tells me that they always contact us when stuff like this happens,

and we didn’t hear anything from the hospital.”

Still, Wagner added that

the airline is trying to help those who were injured during the event.

The

hospital this morning was unable to provide information on either the total

number of people treated after around 5 p.m. the day of the incident, nor the

number who came for treatment or examination who claimed injuries as a result

of the hard landing, a spokesperson said.

Hawaiian Airlines ground

personnel at the airport reportedly were angered by the Wednesday story,

particularly customer service agents who watched every passenger walk off the

plane under their own power and fielded no complaints of injuries that

afternoon.

“We didn’t get any reports of injury until after the fact,”

Wagner corroborated.

Stofleth said she walked off the plane on her own, but

was in something of a state of shock after the traumatic event.

The overall

safety record of Hawaiian Airlines is relatively spotless. The 12th largest

airline in the United States, it carries over 12 million passengers a year and

in its 71 years of flying has never had a passenger fatality.

The incident,

as reported by the NTSB, is the only one pertaining to Hawaiian in at least the

last 12 months.

While NTSB investigators say a final report is expected

within a few months, Federal Aviation Administration officials said that,

because the case didn’t involve any serious injuries or fatalities, it will

likely be a few years before the final NTSB report is issued.

It is, in

other words, a low-priority incident for NTSB.

For example, during June,

the same month of the Hawaiian incident, there were 218 air incidents the NTSB

investigated or continues investigating, including 33 cases involving 57

deaths.

The day of the Hawaiian incident, the NTSB investigated six

accidents with seven fatalities.

While in the NTSB’s eyes the injuries

sustained by passengers on the Hawaiian Air flight weren’t “serious,” Stofleth

still comes close to tears when recalling the events of that

afternoon.

Hopeful she will be able to resume commuting and classes at UH

eventually, she is now taking some classes at Kaua’i Community College but has

injuries that will remain with her forever, she said.

Doctors have told her

she’ll have “a weak spot in my back the rest of my life,” said Stofleth. “Those

are ligaments that aren’t supposed to separate.”

She suffered a sacroiliac

separation, where the triangular bone at the base of the back separated from

her pelvis.

There are days when she is in intense pain and days when there

is no pain, she explained. For now, her dream of returning to school once her

youngest of five children began kindergarten has been dashed, at least in terms

of attending the UH-Manoa.

Staff writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached

at 245-3681 (ext. 224) and [pcurtis@pulitzer.net]