Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Sheesh. People happily pay a premium to have a convertible automobile, but when they get it for free onboard an airplane, they freak the hell out.
 
Sheesh. People happily pay a premium to have a convertible automobile, but when they get it for free onboard an airplane, they freak the hell out.

HAHAHA :D:D:D


they learn but each time near information is brought in. Look at how little data the airline industry has to work with. They only have a small handful of events and each time they adjust to account for it.

Aloha Airlines showed high cycle damage. This one by southwest just increases it and shows more new issues.

Remember it is hard to make a statical model out of just a few events. Also that even is over 20 years ago. Not as relevant today as many things changed afterwards. This is a new piece of information and they will adjust to account for it.

The Flight Investigation video mentioned cracks on the exterior of the airplane on the Aloha Airlines airplane, just like the SW one. You're right though, I probably just jumped into that one. :eek: But I wouldn't be surprised if the SW flight is similar to the Aloha Airlines one.
 
How about Continental/Colgan flight 3407, just a little more than 2 years ago in Clarence, NY?

Yep.

Also, most of these fatal crashes in the aviation industry can be attributed to pilot error. The Colgan Air Crash( which is now screwing me over due to the stupid new regs that was passed), that AA flight where the vertical stabilizer broke off when he encountered wake turbulence( this one can be up for debate between pilot error and a design flaw Airbus refuses to acknowledge), etc.

The only one crash in recent times that I can think of that was caused by mechanical failure was that flight where the tail engine blew up which knocked out all the hydraulics( and thus the flight controls). The pilots did a wonderful job in that situation.
 
Last edited:
Please cite any references that AFR447 went down due to the structural integrity of the A330 in that incident. I'll help you: you can't.

BL.

?
i... didn't say anything about that aircraft going down for structural reasons.
was making a point about overall safety. chill out-
 
The only one crash in recent times that I can think of that was caused by mechanical failure was that flight where the tail engine blew up which knocked out all the hydraulics( and thus the flight controls). The pilots did a wonderful job in that situation.

You would be referring to UAL232.

?
i... didn't say anything about that aircraft going down for structural reasons.
was making a point about overall safety. chill out-

Overall safety goes both ways. AWE1549 brought everyone home safe, while no-one survived MSR990.

AWE1549: A320.
MSR990: B767.

BL.
 
It's still statistically safer to fly on airlines in the United States than to drive, so I'm not too worried ;)

All mechanical things eventually have problems. The goal of design is not to necessarily avoid literally everything possible which could ever forseeably go wrong but to provide safe resolutions to those sorts of circumstances (as much as possible). This appears to have happened here.
 
Err, you're comparing birdstrike to what was more than likely suicide by the pilot. Apples and oranges. I'm lost here.

My point is that someone pretty much implied that the structural integrity of the B733 from SWA812 was the reason why everyone made it out alive, compared to AFR447, and because of that, the overall safety of Boeing aircraft is better than that of Airbus.

My point is that you can't determine that from AFR447, because no data is available on what brought it down. On top of that, structural integrity was compromised on AWE1549, an A320, which everyone made it out on, and not MSR990, which integrity there was rather compromised (when it hit the ocean).

Actually, I'll digress on MSR990. That one isn't a good example. CAL611 is a better example, with it being a B742.

BL.
 
AWE1549 gently glided onto the Hudson, MSR990 took a steep nosedive into the ocean. An Airbus would not have survived that either. CAL611 was an in-air breakup caused by improper maintenance. Again, not comparable at all.

Still not sure where you're going here.
 
AWE1549 gently glided onto the Hudson, MSR990 took a steep nosedive into the ocean. An Airbus would not have survived that either. CAL611 was an in-air breakup caused by improper maintenance. Again, not comparable at all.

Still not sure where you're going here.

I'll say it again. Structural integrity was compromised.

Birdstrike took out both engines. Structural integrity was compromised.

CAL611 was metal fatigue, just like SWA812. Structural integrity was compromised. Same with AAH243.

What I am getting at is that the poster can't say that Boeing is safer overall than Airbus, when both have had the same things happen to it. AAL587's stabilizer broke off, compromising the integrity of the A306. Same with USA427. All aircraft run the same risks regarding overall safety, especially given the high number of cycles between service and maintenance. Given the fact that SWA has always prided itself on the 20-minute turnaround, something like this was more than likely going to happen. Unfortunately, it happened on an aircraft younger than the oldest B777 in service.

This will be more than rectified, when they start to phase out the -300s as they bring in the -800s they've ordered, plus transition in the -800s they'll receive from buying TRS.

BL.
 
In The Islands, they are essentially local busses, but with wings.

Perhaps this skews the stats?

That has nothing to do with the stats. I know why it was a high cycle air craft which as you pointed out they are basically local.
From there we discovered how bad high cycle damage build up will happen. We learned from it but this South west flight was at about 50% the number of cycles and on top of that happen 20 years afterwards which meant that chances are we had new infomation to work with.

I was mostly pointing out that for stats look at how often we have aircraft problems on big jets. Those are very few data points to work with to have to figure out if something is going to be a problem over the long term.
 
I'll say it again. Structural integrity was compromised.

Birdstrike took out both engines. Structural integrity was compromised.

CAL611 was metal fatigue, just like SWA812. Structural integrity was compromised. Same with AAH243.

What I am getting at is that the poster can't say that Boeing is safer overall than Airbus, when both have had the same things happen to it. AAL587's stabilizer broke off, compromising the integrity of the A306. Same with USA427. All aircraft run the same risks regarding overall safety, especially given the high number of cycles between service and maintenance. Given the fact that SWA has always prided itself on the 20-minute turnaround, something like this was more than likely going to happen. Unfortunately, it happened on an aircraft younger than the oldest B777 in service.

This will be more than rectified, when they start to phase out the -300s as they bring in the -800s they've ordered, plus transition in the -800s they'll receive from buying TRS.

BL.

umm Structural integrity is not effected by the if the engines flame out or not. The structure of the craft has nothing to do with the engines. Structural integrity involves only the frame of the air craft.
 
umm Structural integrity is not effected by the if the engines flame out or not. The structure of the craft has nothing to do with the engines. Structural integrity involves only the frame of the air craft.

I would say to the contrary. Case in point: the aforementioned UAL232. The damage to the horizontal stabilizer, the tail elevator and the actual nacelle of the third engine was caused by fatigue in the engine that caused it to blow, taking all hydraulics out with it.

Also, if integrity involves only the frame of the aircraft and has nothing to do with the engines, then AAL191 should never have happened, no?

BL.
 
Holes is a bit dramatic. They are subsurface cracks and they're fixing them. I would fly Southwest over any airline given the choice based on their fleet. As already posted, they're supposed to retire their fleet and bring in new. I don't recall the last time a fleet was retired, I look at the American Airlines flights I have to be on for work and worry about **** randomly falling off the plane as people violently load their crap. It's happened twice since I've been flying with them. Random pieces of plastic shouldn't just end up on a seat.

Errrr did you even read the whole article? Just in case you didn't there was a gaping hole in the roof of the flight that sparked this off:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12945453

As for the Airbus/Boeing debate. I do feel safer on Airbus' because I know people that make the things and the checks they do are immense, gotta support our economy you know! :)
 
Seriously? You would have thought that Airlines would learn from history and be more careful about these things.

I know we don't know the details of the incident ,but it looks like the same issue here with Aloha Airlines Flight 243.

Luckily it didn't turn out as bad.

It's the same but on a smaller scale, because of the Aloha flight. I believe after that explosive decompression accident they redesigned the outer shell to break away at smaller points. This is why in the SWA812 incident you had a hole only a couple of feet wide open up. So yes, if you were on the plane, it would have been really freaky, but they were never in any serious danger. The small size of the hole didn't allow explosive decompression (just rapid), so the airframe was never compromised. Obviously you need to make the emergency landing, but hypothetically the plane could have kept flying.


I'll say it again. Structural integrity was compromised.

Birdstrike took out both engines. Structural integrity was compromised.

CAL611 was metal fatigue, just like SWA812. Structural integrity was compromised. Same with AAH243.

The airframe was fine. A small hole caused depressurization of the cabin. You can still fly fine without cabin pressure, you just can't breathe above 15,000 ft. This is why they made the emergency descent to 10,000.

What I am getting at is that the poster can't say that Boeing is safer overall than Airbus, when both have had the same things happen to it. AAL587's stabilizer broke off, compromising the integrity of the A306. Same with USA427. All aircraft run the same risks regarding overall safety, especially given the high number of cycles between service and maintenance. Given the fact that SWA has always prided itself on the 20-minute turnaround, something like this was more than likely going to happen. Unfortunately, it happened on an aircraft younger than the oldest B777 in service.

This will be more than rectified, when they start to phase out the -300s as they bring in the -800s they've ordered, plus transition in the -800s they'll receive from buying TRS.

Well they said SWA had 80 737-300s similar to this one (ie age, to/landing cycles, etc), and they took them all out of service over the weekend to do in depth inspections. They found 5 that needed repairs, so those are either out of service or retired. The rest were fine and have been restored to normal duty.

I know when incidents like this happen people tend to freak out and make them seem like a way bigger deal than there is. The reality is that air travel is still the safest way to travel. And if we are just talking about the Boeing 737 (the aircraft in this incident), there are around 1,250 737s in the air around the world at any given time, and one takes off or lands every 5 seconds. ONE incident every few years is nothing when they are used this much.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.