American Airlines Passenger Watch Walls Split Apart In Flight

a reply to: roadgravel

The inner wall has nothing to do with anything vital on the plane. It pretty much covers the wiring and ducting and makes it pretty. That's it. The entire thing could separate and fall on passengers and absolutely nothing would happen to the plane.

Wrong thread.. silly me

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: roadgravel

The inner wall has nothing to do with anything vital on the plane. It pretty much covers the wiring and ducting and makes it pretty. That's it. The entire thing could separate and fall on passengers and absolutely nothing would happen to the plane.

I realize that, but how sure were the inflight engineers flight attendants in their ability to properly assess the structural integrity of the aircraft. Whats to say 5 minutes later the outer skin or a window frame fails.

I could see a question of fuel load.

a reply to: roadgravel

Because there is usually warning before it happens. And even if it failed it would have held together long enough to land.

Aloha 243, a 737-200, ripped open all the way across the top of the fuselage, from just behind the cockpit to the wing. It flexed so badly that the pilots would look back, and see nothing but sky, because the nose had flexed down. The next time, they would be looking down at the passengers. They flew 20 minutes or so like that, and landed.

Planes can take a LOT of damage and keep flying.

a reply to: Zaphod58

And they only lost one person out of the aircraft. Only one, not bad.

a reply to: roadgravel

It was a hell of a job flying her. The tapes are chilling. All the pilots knew was there was a big chunk of plane just gone. They thought they were going down. Maui did a great job handling them too.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Didn't they make a movie about that incident? I thought I remember seeing it...

a reply to: MystikMushroom

There was a bad TV movie about it.

a reply to: Zaphod58

The tapes are chilling

I've listened to some of it in the past. Yeah, the flight crew did a very good job.

Just remember one thing. After watching that video of the woman, flight attendant, and the pilot? None of them built, or know how to build, nor have they ever seen how the plane was built. So don't ever do what they all did and stick your hands in there.

a reply to: GiulXainx

I've done worse. Lol

One of those things where "logic" would tell me it's a triviality....but deep inside I would probably make up nightmare scenarios that the entire airframe is just barely holding together, waiting for the plane to crack and burst any moment : )

This is interesting and scary. I fly every month taking 3 aircraft per journey. I fly Air France for 2 legs of the Journey them a local one for the last and first part depending on if I'm coming or going. The Air France flights have been uneventful but the local airline? Sheesh!

They use old 737's and the inside panelling is either missing in places or sagging. You kind of ignore it unless they are flying through a storm then with your stomach jumping up and down it becomes a bit more noticeable. Sometimes the local flights are the worst flights. At least you see Air France Pilots checking the outside of the plane over. The local ones don't bother.

I used to fly to Nigeria for my job via British Airways on a 747 from London to Lagos. These flights were ok until landing in Lagos where twice we had to abort the landing due to another plane being on the runway. The pilot was always so cool about it. But flying internally via Virgin Nigeria was scary. One time we landed so hard in Port Harcourt the rear left tyres blew and the whole cabin screamed. Scary! I don't trust locally owned and run flights in some of these countries. In Nigeria a new airline called Bellvue had 2 crashes in as many months in 2005. One of those was foe a fault in the landing gear that after the first time it happened they never grounded the plane. They just fuelled up and took off again. Then the landing gear failed again and they couldn't even manually lower it. The belly landed and blew the plane up.

Anyway, it all boils down to maintenance and having the right attitude for it. Some locally run African flight carriers don't give a monkeys until something happens. Air France, British Airways and KLM etc among others have good maintenance records. Just as well!!

a reply to: JIMC5499

Maybe could be prior tampering and the individual/individuals didn't realize the materials that were needed to put it back together. Especially with all the scares going around Dallas right now who knows.