Southwest Airplane's roof rip's open mid flight.

mayotom

Once again an arcraft's outer skin ruptured mid flight

Southwest Airlines Plane's Ceiling Rips Open During Phoenix-Sacramento Flight

Southwest Airlines Emergency landing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UX7Nd1meWY

JupiterKid

Well, the most important thing is that everyone survived. It must have been a terrifying ordeal.

I flew Southwest a couple of times in the 90s. They are the US equivalent of Ryanair.

David086

Sun roof seats :cool:

lord lucan

It appears they've grounded all their 733's(81 in total) whilst they work with Boeing on understanding what happened and finding a solution.

lord lucan

Gekko

There was an investigation into Boeing on Al Jazeera's People and Power some time ago and I think this may be a possible consequence of the issue they were looking at.

Garco

Damn 737 junk box's

iPlop

Garco wrote: »

Damn 737 junk box's

The 737 is one of the most successful aircraft ever built and they're not "junk boxes"

This was an older 737-300 model which probably had very high cycle time on it.It's happened before to aircraft that have high cycles and the enviroment can effect it too.Aloha Airlines Flight 243 anyone.

Stinicker

Didn't a big chunk rip away from a 747 once also sucking out a row of seats?

iPlop

3 more southwest planes found with cracks in the roof

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12954335

Manic Moran

JupiterKid wrote: »

They are the US equivalent of Ryanair.

You've obviously never flown both Ryanair and SouthWest.

NTM

mle1324

Manic Moran wrote: »

You've obviously never flown both Ryanair and SouthWest.

NTM

I'd be genuinely interested in knowing what the difference of standard is between the two ? I've being on Ryanair before but never Southwest.

Steyr

Stinicker wrote: »

Didn't a big chunk rip away from a 747 once also sucking out a row of seats?

Maybe,but Qantas had a 747 incident too.

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/26/business/fi-qantas26

Investigators probe cause of rupture in side of plane
AIRLINESThe Boeing-made jumbo jet owned by Qantas often flew passengers between LAX and Australia.
July 26, 2008|Peter Pae | Times Staff Writer


A rupture in the side of a Qantas Airways 747 jumbo jet Friday alarmed air travelers worldwide as investigators launched a probe into how it happened and what was to blame.

Qantas passengers were dispatched on other planes to their destinations as the damaged aircraft was being inspected in Manila by Australian and U.S. accident investigators, including a team from Boeing Co., the Chicago-based manufacturer of the aircraft.

The incident may seem far away and only distantly important to some. But, in a way, it was jarringly close: The plane involved in Friday's incident often flew passengers between Los Angeles International Airport and cities in Australia, even as recently as Tuesday, according to the aircraft's flight manifest.

Kathy Bosworth, a Dallas resident who was waiting at LAX for her daughter's Qantas flight from Sydney, said she "just froze" when TV shows aired the incident Friday morning.

Televised video footage taken by a passenger showed the inside of the plane, and Bosworth said the back of another woman's head looked exactly like her daughter.

"I literally held my breath. And it was five minutes before they said which flight it was," Bosworth said.

Her daughter, Erin Hunt, didn't know about the incident, which she said was "very unlike Qantas." Hunt flies the airline every couple of months.

"I think it was a fluke. I still trust the safety of Qantas. I'll be interested, though, in what happened," Hunt said.

Several Australians flying into LAX said they aren't worried about the safety record at Qantas, Australia's largest airline.

"I'm alive and here to talk about it," said Matt Fry, 30. "I only fly Qantas. They've got the best safety record of any airline in the world."

The 2-foot-by-5-foot hole in the side of the jumbo jet carrying 346 passengers over the South China Sea forced the pilot to make an emergency landing in Manila after a rapid descent.

The images of the damage were eerily similar to the harrowing 1988 incident in Hawaii in which an Aloha Airlines plane flying from Hilo to Honolulu lost an 18-foot section of its skin, killing a flight attendant who was ejected from the jet.

The Qantas flight, which originated in London with a stopover in Hong Kong, was on its last leg home to Melbourne, Australia. It was cruising at 29,000 feet when a loud bang rattled the plane, according to passenger accounts. A video taken by a passenger shows people wearing their oxygen masks as the jet descended to 10,000 feet.

A320

Gekko wrote: »

There was an investigation into Boeing on Al Jazeera's People and Power some time ago and I think this may be a possible consequence of the issue they were looking at.

That was on 737NG's this was a classic.
metal fatigue caused by scribe marks,not uncommon

The Qantas incident was the crew Oxygen Cylinder blowing

BrianD

Remember the Aloha Airways incident in Hawaii a few years back when a huge section of the roof came off? This is apparently caused by the high take off/landing cycle that these planes had - nearly all inter-island transit in Hawaii is by air and not sea.

Perhaps this is a problem that other commuter style, fast turnaround airlines could be facing?

Stinicker

Manic Moran wrote: »

You've obviously never flown both Ryanair and SouthWest.

NTM

mle1324 wrote: »

I'd be genuinely interested in knowing what the difference of standard is between the two ? I've being on Ryanair before but never Southwest.

Having flown on both Airlines I can assure you there are several major differences, South West would be ahead of Aer Lingus in my book and to compare South West to Ryanair is a major insult to South West.

South West do not charge for checked luggage, you get two free pieces, they do enforce their weights though, my checked bag was overweight so I diverted some stuff to my carryon and checked both of them in, if I did this with Ryanair I would have been totally ripped off in fees.

SouthWest have assigned seating like most normal airlines, avoiding the cattle crush.

South West gives out free drinks and snacks in-flight.

They fly to normal full service airports, and if Ryanair was truly like SW they'd be flying to places like Heathrow and Frankfurt Main. Not Stansted and Hahn.

They offer a "business class" fare which is $10 more expensive, more so on some fares, and you get to board the plane first, you get a drinks coupon which will allow you have alcohol, normal passengers must pay for alcohol. If your a frequent flyer you get extra points on the business fare but the big bonus of it when I used it was you get to dodge the lemmings in Security and go through a fast track more relaxed security screening area. Security in the US is a big deal so this takes alot of the stress out of it.

They are a much more civilised Airline than Ryanair and last time I was in Las Vegas I used them and booked a last minute one-way flight in the morning to LAX for $85, try doing that on Ryanair and you will pay anything up to €300. Then at McCarran my flight was cancelled by SouthWest, We were put on an earlier flight those of us who were there early for the flight and I ended up in LA an hour earlier than planned with all my bags, late passengers would be put on the next flight. I also got an email offering me a 50% discount of my next South West flight for the inconvenience. I doubt Ryanair would be as accommodating.

South West have American staff who can speak English and Spanish, I think Ryanair are on their way to inventing their own language, the SW staff are chirpy, happy folk who like to do spontaneous things like Rap or Sing in mid flight. To qualify as a Ryanair employee I think you must be clinically depressed and/or bipolar. Sorry for OT.

Steyr wrote: »

Maybe,but Qantas had a 747 incident too....

This was actually the incident I was thinking of with United.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_811

Einstein

Glad everyone was ok no doubt, but this is funny :

News Reader - "Lisa, At what point did you realise something was wrong..?"

Lisa - "Um...when I heard the explosion and the Oxygen masks fell from the ceiling..."

lol

A320

the thing with aloha also would be constant flights over sea causes a lot more corrosion, as salt is a contributing factor.i've seen some airlines especially used for this purpose with a lot more corrosion than others,especially landing gears.

iPlop

A320 wrote: »

the thing with aloha also would be constant flights over sea causes a lot more corrosion, as salt is a contributing factor.i've seen some airlines especially used for this purpose with a lot more corrosion than others,especially landing gears.

Yeah the sea air was a major factor with that flight and also the aircraft had 89,000 landing cycles far beyond what it was designed for

Manic Moran

mle1324 wrote: »

I'd be genuinely interested in knowing what the difference of standard is between the two ? I've being on Ryanair before but never Southwest.

The similarities are fast turnaround, all-737 fleets.... and that's more or less where it stops.

Thread on this precise topic:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=69777159

NTM

BuffyBot

Didn't a big chunk rip away from a 747 once also sucking out a row of seats?

Different situation. A cargo door design flaw was the issue there.

SouthWest have assigned seating like most normal airlines, avoiding the cattle crush.

No, they don't.

They fly to normal full service airports, and if Ryanair was truly like SW they'd be flying to places like Heathrow and Frankfurt Main. Not Stansted and Hahn.

Not always. It's only in recent years they've started serving main airports again, such as San Francisco etc.

Delta Kilo

The 737 classic series has had issues with its fuselage lap joints since the day it first rolled out of the hangar in Seattle. It is a well known problem with the aircraft and I believe there were lots and lots of airworthiness directives brought out over the years to try and stop a situation such as this happening, especially after aloha 243. Problem is there are thousands and thousands of rivet holes throughout the fuselage and to check each one for corrosion is a slow and tedious process.

Here is an example of a current AD for a classic series 737 aircraft:
http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2006L00728

As someone else already mentioned, scribe marks were also a problem, though i suspect not at play here. Scribe marks occured when people painting the aircraft cut around decals etc with stanley knives or blades. I dont think the section of the fuselage that blew would have been subject to scribe lines.

Boeing reckoned they had solved the issue with a new lap joint design in the NG series 737 aircraft, only time will tell I guess.

Glad nobody was injured.

lord lucan

Just to address Stinickers point about Southwest having assigned seating. They don't. They do however use a boarding system based on groups(A/B/C),a bit like the old FR sequence number. If you check in online the day before you'll most likely be in group A and most likely first onto the aircraft. If you arrive late to the airport to check in manually you'll most likely end up in group C and one of the last on the aircraft.

My experience of it was it was very effective. The embarkation was controlled allowing people to stow baggage in the overhead bins without a crush forming behind you. Seating was chosen by pax upon embarkation.

Stinicker

lord lucan wrote: »

Just to address Stinickers point about Southwest having assigned seating. They don't. They do however use a boarding system based on groups(A/B/C),a bit like the old FR sequence number. If you check in online the day before you'll most likely be in group A and most likely first onto the aircraft. If you arrive late to the airport to check in manually you'll most likely end up in group C and one of the last on the aircraft.

My experience of it was it was very effective. The embarkation was controlled allowing people to stow baggage in the overhead bins without a crush forming behind you. Seating was chosen by pax upon embarkation.

You are right, As I was on their business class priorty boarding I mistook this, normal passengers sit wherever there is free seats. It worked very effectively compared to the mad crush at the gate like with Ryanair.

Manic Moran

For the sake of complete accuracy, the groups are further subdivided with a unique number, and boarding is done in alpha numeric sequence. A1 is first on the plane, then A2, and so on. So there is no crush at all

NTM

jay93

At least no parts of a Ryanair roof has ever come off! (yet)

Lapin

Stinicker wrote: »

......the SW staff are chirpy, happy folk who like to do spontaneous things like Rap or Sing in mid flight.

That would annoy the hell out of me.


Although maybe not as much as the roof of the plane choosing its own destination mid flight.

Stinicker

jay93 wrote: »

At least no parts of a Ryanair roof has ever come off! (yet)

I doubt it could considering all the weight from the stuffed overhead lockers, I'd wager they carry more weight in the overhead lockers than the hold underneath nowadays!