With hole in plane, scare in sky

[Naim 6]

Posted on Saturday, 10.30.10

 

MIAMI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

 

With hole in plane, scare in sky

 

Authorities are investigating a hole that forced an American Airlines emergency landing at MIA.

By JENNIFER LEBOVICH

jlebovich@MiamiHerald.com

 

Authorities are investigating what could have caused a hole in the body of an American Airlines plane, forcing it to make an emergency landing at Miami International Airport.

 

An inspection found a hole above the left forward door of the Boeing 757, according to Kathleen Bergen, a Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman.

 

``It's extremely rare, and that's why it's receiving a very close look,'' Bergen said.

 

Flight 1640, with 154 passengers and six crew members, left Miami International Airport for Boston at 9:15 Tuesday night. About 30 minutes later, it started losing cabin pressure at about 30,000 feet, authorities said. Oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling. The pilots instructed passengers to put them on.

 

The crew turned the plane around to return to MIA.

 

Passenger Edward Croce said he heard what sounded like a loud explosion from outside the plane, then felt cabin pressure drop. There was considerable noise and a smell in the cabin.

 

``It was a state of chaos and panic,'' said Croce, 34, of Braintree, Mass. ``People were all clinging onto each other and really scared and crying. It's probably the worst thing you can imagine.''

 

Croce, returning from a Jamaican honeymoon, said the plane began to descend quickly.

 

For several minutes, they heard nothing from the crew. Lights flickered off and on. Because the plane was over water, the experience was all the scarier, Croce said.

 

After a short while, the pilots announced the plane would be making an emergency landing at MIA and that everything indicated they would be OK. Flight attendants passed by handing out gum to help alleviate ear pressure.

 

Within 20 minutes, they were back on the ground.

 

``People were in shock when we finally got off the plane,'' Croce said.

 

Federal investigators examined the plane in Miami, documenting and taking measurements of the damage.

 

American Airlines said the plane has been taken out of service.

 

``American Airlines has assigned a team of engineers and maintenance technicians who are evaluating the aircraft at this time. We have also been in contact with Boeing, the NTSB and the FAA,'' the airline said in a statement.

 

A section of the plane was torn away from the area above the door, said Keith Holloway, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board.

 

``We're in the fact gathering stage of the investigation,'' Holloway said, adding it was too early to say what caused the one-foot by one-foot rip in the plane's hull.

 

``We'll be looking at metal fatigue, of course any mechanical issues,'' he said.

 

The Boeing 757 is about 20 years old, Holloway said. American Airlines declined to confirm the age of the plane, but said the average age of its 757 fleet is 16 years.

 

This is not the first time a 757 has develop a similar tear.

 

During a maintenance inspection of a United Airlines Boeing 757 in September, a crack was found in a location of the plane similar to the area of damage on the American plane, Holloway said.

 

He said they do not yet know if ``there are any other similarities between the two incidents.''

 

Such a tear ``would immediately raise concerns about corrosion causing a weakness in the structure,'' said Keith Mackey, an aviation safety consultant.

 

Age and the number of flights on the plane could also be a factor.

 

The metal in the aircraft flexes as the aircraft is pressurized and depressurized, but fatigue or corrosion could weaken the metal and cause a failure, Mackey said.

 

Another possibility, he said, would be from some kind of structural problem if the plane had been damaged.

 

There have been similar scares.

 

• Last July, a crack between two sheets of aluminum skin opened into a hole in the roof of a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737. The plane lost pressure and had to make an emergency landing. The incident prompted increased inspections of the parts of 737s.

 

• In 1988, cracks caused part of the roof of an Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 to peel open in flight. A flight attendant plunged to her death.

 

This report was supplemented with material from The Associated Press.

 

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/30/1899150/with-hole-in-plane-scare-in-sky.html

[Denny Yen 0]

Size of hole is about 2ft...it could've led to disaster like Aloha Airlines open top 737.

 

 

Jet Suffered Two-Foot Hole, Decompression

 

By ANDY PASZTOR

 

Boeing Co. and federal air-safety officials are stepping up scrutiny of certain Boeing 757 aircraft after a two-foot hole opened earlier this week in the fuselage of an American Airlines jet cruising at 31,000 feet, resulting in rapid cabin decompression.

 

The emergency, which occurred on an AMR Corp. American Airlines jet en route from Miami to Boston on Tuesday, prompted the crew and 154 passengers to don oxygen masks about half an hour into the flight. The twin-engine 757 descended to a lower altitude, turned around and made a safe landing at Miami International Airport. There were no injuries.

 

But industry officials said the incident—which created a rupture roughly two feet long and a foot wide above the jet's front left cabin door—bears some similarity to cracks found last month in the fuselage of a United Continental Holdings' United Airlines Boeing 757.

 

According to industry officials, manufacturer Boeing working on a safety alert, called a service bulletin, dealing with stepped-up inspections of certain portions of older 757 models. Industry officials said both planes had logged between 20,000 and 25,000 flights, which would make them middle-aged aircraft. Enhanced-inspection programs often apply to older planes that have undergone greater structural stress from many more takeoffs and landings. Rapid cabin decompressions are rare events, and they may stem from undetected metal fatigue that can suddenly peel back a portion of an aircraft's aluminum skin in midair.

 

It's too early to tell what caused the rupture on the American Airlines plane. Both the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating, but agency officials on Thursday declined to comment on their focus. Investigators, though, are looking for links between Tuesday's event and the damage found earlier on the United jetliner.

 

A Boeing spokeswoman declined to comment, except to say the company is providing technical assistance to the safety board and "will take appropriate action" as warranted by the investigation.

 

The American plane is out of service. Its flight-data and cockpit voice recorders have been shipped to the safety board, which also will examine the ruptured portion of the fuselage.

 

A spokesman for American Airlines confirmed details of the incident Thursday, adding that airline engineers and technicians are cooperating with government safety officials to determine the cause.

 

Based on initial reports, the spokesman said, the pressure loss inside the cabin started "with a small hole in the fuselage just above the first door on the left side" of the plane behind the cockpit, and then ripped open a gash two feet long.

 

American operates a fleet of more than 100 Boeing 757s on domestic and transcontinental routes, as well as to serve some international destinations. Hundreds of others are flown by major U.S. carriers, and 757s are widely used by large international carriers. Whatever stepped-up inspection procedures Boeing ultimately distributes will apply world-wide. But because such maintenance bulletins are only recommendations and aren't binding on carriers, U.S. and foreign air-safety regulators typically follow up with mandatory directives.

 

This week's incident caught the attention of investigators partly because the American jet isn't particularly old, and it doesn't fall into the category of ageing aircraft prone to metal fatigue and therefore already subjected to heightened scrutiny and structural inspections.

 

The cause of the latest in-flight rupture, according to industry officials, appears to have some parallels to a July 2009 incident involving a Southwest Airlines Co. Boeing 737 jet that made an emergency landing in Charleston, W.Va., after developing a one-foot hole on top of its fuselage at 30,000 feet. In that incident, the cabin rapidly lost air pressure, oxygen masks deployed and the plane diverted and made an emergency landing without any injuries.

 

Boeing subsequently urged operators of more than 130 older 737 jets to step up inspections or install certain strengthening metal parts around suspect areas. In January, the FAA ordered enhanced structural checks—repeated roughly every few months—of affected aircraft without the modifications. The agency said undetected cracks "could result in sudden fracture and failure of the fuselage skin panels, and consequent rapid decompression."

 

Write to Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com

[Denny Yen 0]

 

 

Edited November 1, 2010 by Denny Yen