Turkish Airlines flight TK-875 had to return and make an emergency landing at Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport, Iran, on October 16th.
The Airbus A330-300 plane took off for Istanbul, Turkey, but had to turn back after the crew needed to shut down one of the engines.
The plane landed back safely. All passengers and crew members remained unharmed.
Singapore Airlines flight SQ-323 made a safe emergency landing at Singapore Changi Airport, Singapore, On June 18.
The Airbus A350-900, en-route from Amsterdam, Netherlands, was about to land when the crew requested authorities to keep a tow ready advising they would not be able to vacate the runway in time.
The plane landed safely.
No one was injured.
LATAM Airlines flight XL-1730 had to return and make an emergency landing in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on February 27th.
The Boeing 767-300 plane took off for Madrid, Spain, but had to return shortly afterwards after it was hit by lightning.
The plane landed back safely. All passengers and crew members remained unharmed.
Click to view full size photo at Airliners.net
Contact photographer
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.
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.
AirAsia India flight I5-541 had to reject takeoff from Ranchi, Jharkhand, India, on July 15th.
The Airbus A320-200 plane was accelerating to takeoff for Delhi, India, when the crew rejected takeoff due to a bird strike.
The plane safely returned to the apron. Everyone aboard remained safe.
A single-engine plane made an emergency landing on the CTFastrak busway on New Park Avenue, West Hartford, Connecticut, at around 3:15 p.m. on November 29.
It appears that the plane, which was flying from Robertson Airport, Plainville, lost engine power while attempting to land at Hartford-Brainard Airport.
The pilot, identified as Danny Hall, of Torrington, remained uninjured.
The FAA is investigating.
JetBlue flight B6-1095 had to return and make an emergency landing in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 6th.
The Airbus A320-200 plane took off for Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, but had to turn back after a foul odor was noticed on-board, causing passengers and crew members to feel sick.
The plane landed safely. Medical teams examined several passengers at the airport.
