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How the Southwest 737 Fuselage Weakness Went Undetected
... now the focus of federal investigators has shifted to a problem in the design and testing of this 737 model: Boeing has acknowledged that a particular joint failed much earlier than its engineers expected. And because they didn't anticipate trouble, the joint was not reviewed during the 737's inspections, so any cracks in the fuselage went unnoticed. (www.popularmechanics.com) Más...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
THE 64K question is, what are they going to do about it? reskin the airplanes during the D check?? make them do NDI more often?? put them out of service
All I know is I'm glad that a reputible magazine came to the defense of Southwest. I am one semester away from my MBA and my thesis is all about showing how Southwest is the most successful airline in history because of XYZ. The day after this incident occured I got an email from my professor basically asking what tricks do I have up my sleave thats going to help me save my thesis. I'm proceeding with the same argument becuase Southwest is STILL the most successful and I have added a little blurb about them voluntarily grounding planes before the AD came out. This further proves my argument that they are customer centered.
TTail I am not and aeronautical/structural engineer, what I am is a private pilot with a few early hours and also a civil engineer. I suspect that Boeing overestimated the capacity of the skin to withstand X number of hours and Y number of cycles of the 737 NG and 757. Reskinning?...mmmm. terribly expensive. By way of comparison the Airbus 320 family has not shown the same fuselage skin weaknesses -no holes have been reported- although they had one serious rudder composite problems with a 300 and a 310 aircraft that was able to land OK, and a few landing gear cracks in 330s and I guess 340s too.
Southwest has been reskinning older 737 at major overhaul. In that process it seems that they would have discovered/uncovered developing problems, but I've seen no mention.
A strange thought crossed my mind: If Boeing is having problems with aluminum fuselage skinsin spite that they have been building pressurized fuselage aircraft since the mid-50s, I wonder what might happen in the future when the composite fuselage skin 787s get old......
GA C210 Pilot. I am interested of John OLeary's comment. Since they were reskinning already, there's probably some maintenance document out there? As for crusader's thesis, you may want to add that Southwest doesn't build planes. Now Boeing vs. AirBus may be a tougher argument.
Former NTSB member and long time airline mechanic John Golia put it best in an interview on FoxNews shortly after the failure--paraphrasing he said, "We saw a small hole in a 737 in 2009, now we have a big hole, and the next one may be a smoking hole. The airplane is trying to tell us something". The interview was in the "outsourced maintenance to El Salvador" vein (which evidently did not occur with this aircraft) but John's comments are spot on.
I would think if there is a serious error in life estimation it would be seen in the airframe accelerated fatigue test articles. It's not like this is a new structure from a design standpoint. Metallurgical analysis should identify the actual cause of the failure which should be compared to the 2009 incident. Operating history and manufacturing records for the particular aircraft involved should also be reviewed.
I would think if there is a serious error in life estimation it would be seen in the airframe accelerated fatigue test articles. It's not like this is a new structure from a design standpoint. Metallurgical analysis should identify the actual cause of the failure which should be compared to the 2009 incident. Operating history and manufacturing records for the particular aircraft involved should also be reviewed.