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What: American Airlines Boeing 757-200 from Miami,FL to Boston,MA
Where: Miami
When: Oct 26th 2010
Who: 154 passengers and 6 crew
Why: A half hour after takeoff, the plane developed rapid decompression at 31,000 feet requiring oxygen masks, an emergency descent and a return to Miami.
Maintenance found a one by two foot hole in the hull.
George’s Point of View
Maintenance, Maintenance, Maintenance!
Even with AD Directives issued, this was still missed. Was there telltale evidence prior to this event that could have prevented endangering 154 passengers and six crew?
The hole in the hull is not unprecedented. Sixteen months prior to flight AA-1640, Southwest Airlines (SWA) flight 2294, (another Boeing suffering a hole in the hull in July 13, 2009), the FAA has already issued Airworthiness Directive 2010-01-09 mandating inspection requirements. At that time, they ascribed the hull failure to a design fault: Fuselage skin failure due to preexisting fatigue at a chemically milled step.
It’s an easy enough thing to visualize-picture slightly squeezing an empty cola can, then blowing into it; and repeating the process, over and over. In a soda can, it would not take the 20 years this plane has been flying for the stressed areas to develop a crease, and eventually crack.
Not that a soda can is expected to sustain the significant pressures at 10,000+ feet, nor does it have the design flaw of chemical milling, nor is its skin made of single and double bonded layers. If it were, one could theoretically presume and anticipate metal fatigue to occur at the weakest location–the edges of where the metal is double-bonded.
In the Southwest Airlines event, it was observed that the progression of metal fatigue tends to be higher at the borders between chemically milled and non-chemically milled bays.
The inspection requirements in SB 737-53A1301 require inspections to detect cracks in the vulnerable areas (the chem-mill step) to avoid sudden fracture and failure of the fuselage skin panels.
Did this plane undergo “repetitive external non-destructive inspections to detect cracks in the fuselage skin“?
Carriers out there, when there are directives which indicate potential problems, pay attention!
If not for the stellar performance of this flight crew, this plane would have been a statistic.
Thank you, John D King for sending the links.
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This deep-sea footage shows inside a sunken passenger plane, once thought to be the wreckage of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. The wreckage of the MH370, which disappeared without trace while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing in March 2014, has still never been found. The wreckage filmed by Deep Blue Dive Center, is actually the Lockheed Martin’s L1011 Tristar plane, which was deliberately sunk in 2019 in Jordan. It serves as a home for sea life, but a viral social media post wrongly speculated it was the MH370, which disappeared in 2014.
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The rarely seen footage comes as the company fiercely fights back following a whistleblower’s testimony on Capitol Hill, where a longtime engineer made some alarming allegations.
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Several months after her viral moment, Tiffany Gomas has garnered fresh attention with an eye-catching new post.
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My wife and I are scheduled for an Alaskan cruise in the fall. By all accounts, it’s something to which we should look forward. I’ve been told the same thing about other trips, including a Vegas…
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In the nearly two decades of A380 operations, the superjumbo has never suffered a fatal accident. Why is this and does that make it the world’s safest aircraft?
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MOBERLY, Mo. (KMIZ) A small plane made an emergency landing just east of Renick, Missouri, on Wednesday afternoon, according to Randolph County Sheriff Aaron Wilson. Wilson told ABC 17 News in a text message that the pilot was not hurt and that deputies took the pilot to a hotel in Columbia. Wilson said the plane
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Alexander Foss, 20, was a junior majoring in aviation flight at Purdue.
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The pilot and his dog were on board the single-engine Piper PA-32 when it crashed off the coast of Rancho Palos Verdes in California.
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Flight Radar 24 shows the moment a small plane flew over Hartsburg Tuesday and lost contact after it crashes into the woods.
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Pilot reported engine issues before small plane crashed just off California coast on Sunday
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MOSCOW: Air New Zealand announced on Wednesday that it will launch the first flights of the Beta ALIA electric cargo aircraft for commercial demonstra…
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Planes battled through flash floods at the Dubai International Airport on Tuesday 16 April, as heavy rain battered the United Arab Emirates. Planes arriving into Dubai airport – the world’s busiest for international travel – were also temporarily diverted on Tuesday evening to other locations. A spokesperson for the airport told The Independent on Tuesday: “Due to the intense storm, operations were temporarily suspended for 25 minutes this afternoon, but have since recommenced, and are now in recovery mode.”
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A U.S. Navy patrol aircraft flew through the sensitive Taiwan Strait on Wednesday, just hours after a conversation between the Chinese and U.S. defence chiefs, in which Beijing warned Washington of the ultra-sensitive nature of the Taiwan issue.
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There were two people in the plane, and Honolulu EMS confirmed no one was injured.
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A small plane made an emergency landing in Kapiolani Park on Tuesday afternoon, in a spectacle that shocked bystanders and triggered a large response.
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HONOLULU (KHON2) — A small plane has made an emergency landing in Kapiolani Park. Honolulu EMS said no injuries have been reported.
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