4 ms·
Well yeah. From the article: > In 1978, a Boeing AOG team repaired the bulkhead of a Japan Airlines 747 damaged in a tail-drag incident. Seven years later, the
by nayuki 3y ago
Well yeah. From the article:
> In 1978, a Boeing AOG team repaired the bulkhead of a Japan Airlines 747 damaged in a tail-drag incident. Seven years later, the repair failed in flight, resulting in an explosive depressurization that tore off the vertical fin and severed all hydraulics systems. Some 30 minutes later, the aircraft slammed into a mountainside; 520 people died in the second worst airline disaster in history. Investigators determined that the AOG repair did not comply with Boeing’s own Structural Repair Manual. Boeing accepted 80 percent of the liability for the crash, while JAL accepted the remainder for neglecting signs that the repaired bulkhead was weakening.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Air_Lines_Flight_123 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Air_Lines_Flight_123
- dotancohen 3y agoTo be fair, that incident is extremely isolated. This team repairs on the order of 100 airplanes a year. They had one major failure in the past 50 years? I am certainly not excusing that nor the loss of lives, however I can not think of any other team working on non-trivial problems, where each problem is unique, that has a lower failure rate.
- dawnerd 3y agoAnd it’s weird the repaired plane wasn’t given a very thorough inspection the next chance it could.
- dtgriscom 3y ago> They had one major failure in the past 50 years? Citation needed...
- dotancohen 3y agoThe incident was citied in the fine article. And it is a well-known incident - other than Tenerif and the 9/11 incidents I can not offhand think of any other incidents with as many fatalities. The Airplane On Ground team (I'm pretty sure that's what AOG stands for, maybe it's Airliner on Ground) is more-or-less well-known in aviation communities.