American Finishes Airbus Checks, No Safety Problems

Reuters/Yahoo! ^ | 19 Nov 01

[thesharkboy]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American Airlines said on Monday it had completed the Airbus A300 tail and rudder inspections ordered by aviation regulators after the crash of Flight 587 last week in New York and found no safety problems.

The checks were ordered on Friday by the Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites) after the ill-fated American A300-600 lost its vertical tail fin and other parts and crashed shortly after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport last Monday.

All 260 people aboard the plane and at least five on the ground were killed.

The order to inspect the tail area and certain rudder parts also included Airbus aircraft operated by United Parcel Service Inc. and FedEx Corp. . Both of those companies said on Monday they were making good progress on the checks, and had turned up no safety problems.

While investigators do not yet know what caused the crash, they are focusing heavily on the composite makeup of the tail section and extreme rudder movements just after the plane passed through a relatively common bout of turbulence.

Airbus, based in Toulouse, France, is owned by European Aeronautic, Defense & Space Co and BAE Systems Plc .

[thesharkboy]

How did they finish these checks so quickly?

[Dog]

No defect in the tail.....what a surprise......NOT!

[Dog]

Move along folks nothing to see here ....go shop at the mall ....buy a car....and fly!

[Defiant]

On a related note, I just finished my investigation into last week's fender bender, and I have found that I was entirely without blame. The other driver stopped too closely in front of me!

[Dog]

This is so unreal......they know this was a terrorist act ....and they are so afraid of starting a panic .....they will say the stupid tail just fell off!

I am so mad I could chew nails!

[DoughtyOne]

I may be wrong, but I doubt it's that hard to check them. I didn't expect to find any trouble with them. I don't believe wind sheer but I do belive the aft rudder may have caused some problems with led to others and the final demise of the aircraft. Somewhere along the line we're either looking at design flaw or sabotage. At least IMO.

[timestax]

This is so unreal......they know this was a terrorist act ....and they are so afraid of starting a panic .....they will say the stupid tail just fell off! I am so mad I could chew nails! 5 posted on 11/19/01 2:18 PM Pacific by Dog [ Post

D I T T O !!

[eno_]

"Engine failure." "Bird-strike." "Wake turbulence." "Cheap French plastic vertical stabilizer mounts." What next?

[EggsAckley]

What next?

Cheese

[jlogajan]

What next?

Cheese

Wrapped in tinfoil.

[Fred Mertz]

I suppose we're too stoopid to handle the truth. Yeah, and national security and all that stuff, blah, blah, blah...

[hchutch]

No. The plan on this is very simple:

After what happened over in Afghanistan, anyone who supports such an activity will ditch their evidence immediately if they are smart. Although, Al-Qaida sure didn't trash any of the documents in Kabul, IIRC.

Now, imagine this scenario: If you have just sponsored an attack that sabotaged an American airliner, killing at least 260 people on American soil, and word gets out that we know it was sabotage, you're gonna ditch as much evidence as possible so that you do not get a nocturnal visit from [pick any of the following: Special Forces, B-2s, Tomahawk cruise missiles, Daisy Cutter-bearing C-130s, etc.].

So, what would a reasonable person at the White House do? Well, they'll go through all the accident theories publicly. They will let the media speculate. Preferably, let thsi thing get off the front page. Do not let the suspect know he is under investigation until you have the good on him. Then strike.

I think they do know the cause, they know it was sabotage, but they are not going to spook the folks who did this just yet. We have an unsettled account with Osama, and we need time to deal with him before we go after the folks who did this.

[lelio]

Can someone post what was the conclusion on what brought down TWA 800 and if TWA also found out, like AA, that those problems amazingly don't exist on their other planes?

[eno_]

Exact quote from Airbus engineering job description: "Doit aimer le fromage."

[gardenfence]

another flight 800 hmmm!

[SSN558]

The photos of the failed rudder show composite failure at the holes that were attach points to the pins. These pictures were posted on a thread several days ago. Zoom in and notice the frayed layers or laminations in the fracture zone. It didn't shear off suddenly, there had to be some flexing of the joints to generate this type of failure.

Delamination played a critical role in the failure of this part, and the failure may have been under way for some time. Trivia: The stress riser on the edge of a round hole is 3X. So the stress at the edge of a hole is multiplied three times the load in the wider section of the part.

I usually use the one diameter rule for design. Keep the fastener or pin one hole diameter away from the edge. Going closer to the edge can only be justified by a detailed and usually finite element model. Since they did not use the one diameter rule Airbus needs to justify this design if they already haven't.

Looks like an engineering failure to me.

[SSN558]

Here I go again. The weak link in composite structures is usually occurs in the fiber/matrix interface. In other words the epoxy doesnt stick to the carbon fibers that well, and chemistry or bad chemistry can make the stress analysts assumption too low.

[Flipyaforreal]

Does anyone have a link to the picture of the fireman at the gas station where one engine landed, crouching down staring at a rather large hole blasted into the side of the engine?

[NixNatAVanG InDaBurgh]

Wrapped in tinfoil.

We have been right over and over. You have been wrong but continued to make fun of us over and over. Now, you just look stupid along with your section 8 genious, VRWC For Truth. It wasn't a tinfoil hat that caused the questions. But there are times when I would like to see you nitwits chew on some.

[PhiKapMom]

I heard a former NTSB Investigator this morning on Paula Zahn and he said the "ONLY" ways to check these composite material tail structures was by x-ray or ultra-sound. He stated unequivocably that a visual inspection would not work with composite tail structures like they do for metal ones.

To demonstrate this fact, he held up a small notepad with a lot of pages and said this was what a composite tail structure looked like and then said it could have a crack inside of the layers and you would not be able to see it visually.

He also commented on the fact that this plane had a patch added when it came from the factory and with this kind of composite material used, it could cause problems down the road with being stronger than other parts of the structure. Also discussed the fact the plane had undergone severe turbulance in the past.

He was well versed in what he was discussing. I would like to know if AA used x-ray or ultra-sound to check these tail structures!