Airlines Archive

Jimmy Stewart Plane Crash Movie too Close to Reality 60 Years Later

April 28th, 2011. By Hunter West

The grounding of a Southwest Airlines 737 earlier this month due to a five-foot tear in the upper fuselage while the plane was in the air reminded me of a favorite old movie starring James Stewart.

‘No Highway in the Sky,’ a British disaster film made in 1951, follows the heroics and eccentricities of a professor and an expert in aviation who is commissioned to investigate the crash of a commercial airliner. Factoring in the age of the plane and the number of hours flown—not to mention the natural propensity of metal to weaken when under constant stress and subject to vibration—Stewart’s character theorizes that the plane crashed because the tail fell off due to metal fatigue.

He proceeds to rig a life-sized experiment in his lab, subjecting the tail section of an actual aircraft to vibrations and various in-flight sources of stress in an effort to replicate the actual crash, and to test his theory.

His colleagues think he is daft. But the movie—based on a novel—did contain some elements of truth.

That was borne out in the comments of a former North Carolina State University prof and expert in materials science, who says cracks in the bodies of commercial airliners are normal, and can be expected.

“It can happen with everyday things,” Charles Manning said in comments published April 4^th on WRAL.com. “Take a paper clip and bend it back and forth. It’s going to break,” Manning said.

Of course, there are the engine vibrations—harkening back to that old Jimmy Stewart movie. But more precisely, Manning told WRAL that the act of pressurizing the cabin, allowing passengers and crew to breathe, stretches the metal skin in, and out with each pressurization. Over time, the metal wears down and cracks.

Fatigue cracks are small, he said—barely perceptible with a microscope when they first occur. It’s when they become more severe and can be seen by the naked eye, that they can potentially become a problem and are then subject to regular inspections.

Manning knows his stuff. For the past 30 years, he has headed Accident Reconstruction Analysis Inc., an engineering consulting firm that performs failure analysis and accident reconstruction. Before that, he was a materials science professor at North Carolina State, and he also headed NASA’s Langley Advanced Materials Research Program. He reminds travelers that planes are inspected regularly, and not to worry…

Not to worry?

Tell that to the frightened passengers on board the Southwest airliner when the five-foot gash blew open, suddenly de-pressurizing the plane. Yes, the aircraft landed safely and there was no loss of life or injury beyond sheer terror. However, the sudden de-pressurization of a cabin can serve as a vacuum, sucking anything out with the rapidly escaping air pressure—like papers, handbags…and if the breach happens to occur adjacent to a child who isn’t strapped in…

Well, you know the rest.

In the movie, Jimmy Stewart’s character forgot to provide for temperature in his calculations. The tail DID fall off in his lab, but a bit beyond when he said it would. Sadly, during the interim, he had caused damage to a similar plane on an attempt to prevent it from taking off (he was worried about the tail), and the daft professor was banished and dismissed as a crackpot.

Until, that is, the tail in his lab experienced fatal metal fatigue, cracked, separated and crashed to the floor.

Until, that is, the actual plane he tried to keep on the ground was repaired and sent up for a test flight without passengers. When it landed, the tail fell off…

It was just a movie, right?

Fact: Three years after the film’s release, there were two fatal crashes involving the world’s first passenger jet, the de Havilland Comet. Investigators determined that metal fatigue was the most likely cause of both accidents, although other sources point to a design flaw. No the tails didn’t fall off, but the fuselage gave way.

That was in 1954.

Then there was the infamous 1988 incident where cracks led to a massive breach in the roof and fuselage of an Aloha Airlines flight. Flight attendant C.B. Lansing was sucked out due to the rapid depressurization, and she fell to her death.

Manning assures that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) keeps the airlines on a tight maintenance schedule, including the testing by manufacturers of aircraft in an effort to gauge when, and where metal is likely to experience fatigue.

Did they miss something with the Southwest flight?

“I think planes are maintained as well as you can, and if the FAA sees that people are not doing it, they get after them,” Manning said.

That’s reassuring…

Hey, how about this idea. Figure out the point when metal starts to experience fatigue—and replace the bloody plane.

Oh, but that would be just too expensive, wouldn’t it? Planes cost millions of dollars. Fleets cost billions. We wouldn’t have an airline industry—it would not be economically viable.

Thus to have an airline industry, it appears that planes are required to stay in service as long as they are well maintained.

Complete with cracks.

Yes, I acknowledge those who maintain flying is still safer than driving—especially with so many people abusing their smart phones and GPS devices—or looking at their computerized dashboards–while driving.

That’s why I’m taking the train…

Posted in Accidents, Airlines | 7629No Comments »2011-04-28+13%3A18%3A23Hunter+West

FAA, Where are You? Clearly Air Traffic Control is Oxymoron

March 24th, 2011. By Hunter West

Now, wouldn’t that make a great reality TV series? Modeled after ‘Car 54 Where Are You,’ only in this scenario the two cops are replaced by two bungling air traffic controllers who don’t bother to answer when a pilot coming in for a landing, radios the approach tower at a major airport and gets no response.

Wait a minute—that would be incorrect. Because apparently there need be only one air traffic controller on duty…late at night…when things are quiet and it’s easy to nod off.

We don’t know if that was the case in the wee hours of yesterday morning when not one, but TWO incoming flights had to make do with input from regional towers and land at Ronald Reagan National Airport using unmanned airport protocol.

But this is bloody serious. Utter negligence. A lawsuit in the making, and a juicy one at that, had anything more serious happened.

According to a report yesterday in The New York Times and a compelling treatment on NBC‘s ‘Today’ this morning, an American Airlines Boeing 737 from Dallas approached the airport around midnight Wednesday but aborted its landing and circled the airport after pilots got no response from the tower. About 15 minutes later, a United Airlines Airbus 320 from Chicago also tried unsuccessfully to establish contact with the tower.

The controller in the tower at Reagan apparently re-appeared and all was well after that. The ‘Today’ show reported this morning that the controller who was on duty has an unblemished record (ps, the controller’s since been suspended, thereby blemishing that unblemished record).

Fine and dandy. But hey, FAA, why is it okay to have just one person in the tower? Would it not, Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Air Traffic Control, FAA, Ronald Reagan Airport
Posted in Airlines, Emerging Issues | 7321No Comments »2011-03-24+20%3A54%3A37Hunter+West

What Happens to Your Image After the Airport Scan?

August 23rd, 2010. By Hunter West

A group known as the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), working through a Freedom of Information Act request, obtained what was described as a “representative sample” of more than 35,000 ‘whole body images’ of attendees at a US courthouse in Orlando.

The images are captured by millimeter wave technology and are ghost-like, not showing much detail.

However, what bothers the EPIC and privacy advocates everywhere, is that the images were even available at all.

The Bijot Gen2 imaging system scans and captures the images of people entering the court facility, for security purposes. US marshals have the capacity to view the current image, and the previous two images, while on security detail.

But instead of being automatically purged the images—according to an August 4^th CNN report—are automatically stored in the system’s hard drive. While the images are available for viewing after the fact, they can only be accessed with the use of a system pass code.

Privacy advocates maintain that this type of archiving makes them nervous with regard to the use of backscatter X-ray machines at the nation’s airports. While the full-body scans Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Airline, Airport Security, Privacy
Posted in Airlines, Intellectual Property | 46401 Comment »2010-08-23+15%3A31%3A29Hunter+West

You Smell: Get off the Plane

February 19th, 2010. By AbiK

dial sopa You Smell: Get off the Plane We’ve all been there. Someone walks by and you catch a whiff. Maybe it’s Giorgio or Red Door layered on a little too thick…that distinct left-the-bar-at-dawn smell…or pure and simple B.O. It’s off-putting, but thankfully not lingering. Unless you’re sittin’ next to it. On a plane.

So as this story goes, regional airliner Jazz Air out of Canada “deplaned” a man for his “strong body odor”. One passenger on the Feb. 6th flight described the smell as “brutal” according to a cnn.com report. The flight was only to be about 2 hours, 21 minutes from Charlottetown to Montreal. But still. Seat back forward, baby, please return that tray table to its upright and locked position. You’re outta here.

This marks what appears to be a new rationale for deplaning a passenger—it used to be that a passenger needed to be a) drunk, b) unruly/belligerent, c) with screaming child in tow, or d) a terrorist suspect to get booted from a plane. Perhaps, too, on an overbooked flight there may have been an occasion where a double-occupancy physique couldn’t squeeze into a single-occupancy seat (hello, Kevin Smith). But for the most part, those were your options for getting kicked off the plane.

Now, I can tell you, if you’ve never experienced “brutal” bodily aromas while being held captive, you really can’t call what happened on Jazz Air either shameful or ridiculous. I’ve been there—while in a hospital bed (captive enough?)—and I can tell you it was so bad I marched my rolling I.V. stand right out to that nurses station with that pee-uw look on my face and my nose clipped shut clothespin-style with my fingers and requested a complete fumigation of the room and something for nausea. It. Was. Bad. So my sympathies lie with the other passengers on this one. But it does raise the question of just what exactly are grounds to kick someone off a plane they’ve no doubt spent hundreds—possibly thousands—to be riding the friendly skies in?

And I question what grounds may follow…halitosis? snoring? smelly feet? excessive dandruff? chatty Cathy? Sounds like a new day dawning in discrimination litigation…

Tags: Airline Passenger Rights, Jazz Air
Posted in Airlines | 27782 Comments »You+Smell%3A+Get+off+the+Plane2010-02-19+22%3A32%3A34AbiK

Airline Passengers Get a Bill of Rightsâ€“Better Late than Never!

December 21st, 2009. By LucyC

in flight meal cart2 Airline Passengers Get a Bill of Rightsâ€“Better Late than Never! When I read the headline this morning I thought they were describing a United Nations or World Health Organization intervention. “Airlines must supply food, water after 2 hours, maintain operable lavatories” (msnbc.com). But no—the Obama administration has developed some regulations to protect domestic air travelers.

In fact, the Transportation Department has ordered US passenger airlines operating domestic flights to let passengers deplane if they’ve been stuck in a plane on the tarmac for three hours. Three hours is still a long time, mind you, especially if you’re flying at the back of the bus, but it’s better than the current time limit—which is FOREVER.

According to the report on msnbc—some 613 planes were delayed on US tarmacs in the first six months of 2009—January to June. Not surprisingly, there are horror stories aplenty from passengers stranded in hot, crowded planes for hours—even overnight—while the problem that caused the aborted take-off is fixed—best case scenario.

Of course there’s always the chance that the problem can’t be fixed in your lifetime, so after Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Air Travel, Airlines
Posted in Airlines | 22201 Comment »2009-12-21+22%3A03%3A45LucyC