131–140 of 750 posts
That's incredible. The plane literally turned over and burnt but no casualty. The flight staff must have done as amazing job keeping everyone calm and helped everyone get out of the upside, burning plane.
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I seriously, seriously doubt it. The wings are so utterly critical to flight I can’t possibly imagine any situation they’d be engineered to snap off under. Further, that’s where the fuel is and any crash involving a wing rupture is dramatically more dangerous given the risk of fire. Hell even in a crash landing like this you want the plane to stay upright and stable.
Look up stress to failure tests on commercial airplanes. They know how much peak load is supposed to be for the airframe, then they go well beyond it to see how the plane fails. Generally you want the wings to break not the fuselage. You can in a lot of situations land a plane with 1.5 wings. But once the spine cracks you’re just a ballistic object.
I used to work at Boeing on the 757 stabilizer trim system. There's the design group and the stress group. I was in the design group, the stress group double checks the design work.
One day the stress group called me on the carpet, and asked me why my designs consistently just barely exceeded 150%. I said I started with the ultimate load, and worked backwards to size the part. The stress groups said they prefered designs to be 10% over the ultimate load. I replied that I designed to the requirements, as adding 10% makes the airplane overweight. If they didn't like the design requirements, change them.
They grumbled, but I got my way :-/
A few months later, they offered me a position on the stress group. It was a nice compliment, as they normally required a masters' degree and I only had a bachelors. I told them I was honored by the offer, but my heart was in design.
Some time later, my parts were put on the torture rack to see if they passed the ultimate load test. All of them passed on the first try.
I also had the privilege in being mentored by some really fine engineers at Boeing, such as J Burton Berlin and Erwin Schweizer.
Am I proud of that? Yes. I love flying in the 757. Best airplane Boeing ever made. Whenever I fly in them I chat a bit with the flight crew, and they love it, too.
Have there been any recent with major commercial jets yet ?
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It also looks like a wing has been ripped off. That passengers could survive an accident involving so much force is surprising.
Did it roll after landing or before landing?
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There is incredible amounts of regulation around plane, maintenance. From specification of parts, to maintenance schedules, even all the way down to purity and composition of the materials. This regulation is used to make sure that all airlines that operate in the US adhere to the strict and narrow requirements from the manufacturers and the safety testing done. Whether or not you or other people ideologically agree…
What I'm not quite convinced of is that it is the regulation that keeps the airlines following the manufacturers' specifications. I see what happens to stock prices when these companies screw up and they lose a lot more money to that than they ever to do fines from regulators. Are the regulations actually doing much here or are they just repeating what the airlines would do anyway because they have a massive incentiv…
Boeing put the bean counters in charge because it made their stock price go up. Of course, it goes up until the corners you cut to juice short term profitability cause something catastrophic to happen, like the multiple 787-max crashes, the door plug blowout, etc. By the time the bad stuff happens, the original decision makers are usually drinking pina coladas on a beach somewhere (or, in the case of former Boeing CEO James McNerney, cashing royalty checks from his book about his stellar management style and what a smart guy he is).
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True but I have a feeling it might be designed to rip off in this situation. I'm more surprised the wing rupture didn't cause a fire/explosion because this is where most of the fuel is stored.
Planes typically land with little fuel left (obviously enough for emergencies etc but they are practically empty, it's safer and more efficient)
what's the root cause