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Milestones
- Thread starter admihoek
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Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
Fifty years ago ended the glamour era of air travel.
On Sunday March 3th 1974, just after 12:30 local time, a DC-10 of Turkish Airlines, Flight 981, from Istanbul to London Heathrow, with a stopover in Paris Orly, crashed into the Ermenonville Forest, shortly after take-off in Paris. The plane left a debris field of hundreds of meters long, disintegrating into thousands of pieces, as happened to the 346 passengers and crew who all got killed.
The clue to the cause was found 15 kilometers from the crash site near the town of Meaux : a cargo door and six occupied passenger seats.
During climb out, at the altitude of 3500 m, a badly locked cargo door had opened. The pressure difference between the outside air and the cabin above had caused the cabin floor to collapse, with the six occupied seats that were sucked out, and severing also all main and back-up control systems. Completely out of control, the aircraft crashed about a minute later.
The inadvertent opening of the cargo door was due to a flawed locking system. The cargo doors of DC-10 opened outward, to save cargo space. Despite being designed to prevent accidental in-flight opening of the doors, it could happen that the latches did catch well, but such was impossible to verify from outside. The tragic was, that the problem was well known, since it already had caused an incident. In June 1972, the cargo door of an American Airlines DC-10 had opened in mid-air and broken off, in about the same conditions as on the Turkish Airlines plane, but without fatal damage to the control cables, so the plane had landed safely. After the latter incident, recommendations for improvement of the closing system were issued, which were however not compulsory. On that Sunday afternoon at Orly, luggage was handled by operators who did not understand the English recommendations on the cargo door, and there was no supervision on the appropriate closing of the doors.
At the time, it was the most deadly air disaster ever. It is still the most deadly disaster of a DC-10, the most deadly air crash in France, and of a crash not involving a Boeing 747. Although it was not the first deadly accident of the then new wide-body fleet (that was a L-1011 in the Everglades, Florida at Christmas 1972, when pilots failed to monitor altitude during descent, while focused on a broken lightbulb of the landing gear indicator), the immense death toll of Flight 981 suddenly drew attention on the possible consequences of flying hundreds of passengers when things could go wrong.
In the 1960’s, travel by air was merely ‘something for the rich’ (since a ticket easily could cost a middle class worker’s month salary), and the risk of dying in a crash was hence perceived as just a worry for these flying rich. Air travel had an aura of glamour, from which the word “jet-set” originated, the happy few who could afford an airline ticket. But with the introduction of widebody aircraft, tickets were becoming affordable to a larger population. Much of the passengers of flight 981 were not rich and wealthy folks, but, for instance, there was a group of tens of English rugby supporters, returning from assisting a France-England encounter in Paris. This changed the popular attitude towards the phenomenon of air disasters. The crash was a topic of public debate about airline safety, and a of lot of annoyance because the disaster could have been avoided, since the problem was known.
On Sunday March 3th 1974, just after 12:30 local time, a DC-10 of Turkish Airlines, Flight 981, from Istanbul to London Heathrow, with a stopover in Paris Orly, crashed into the Ermenonville Forest, shortly after take-off in Paris. The plane left a debris field of hundreds of meters long, disintegrating into thousands of pieces, as happened to the 346 passengers and crew who all got killed.
The clue to the cause was found 15 kilometers from the crash site near the town of Meaux : a cargo door and six occupied passenger seats.
During climb out, at the altitude of 3500 m, a badly locked cargo door had opened. The pressure difference between the outside air and the cabin above had caused the cabin floor to collapse, with the six occupied seats that were sucked out, and severing also all main and back-up control systems. Completely out of control, the aircraft crashed about a minute later.
The inadvertent opening of the cargo door was due to a flawed locking system. The cargo doors of DC-10 opened outward, to save cargo space. Despite being designed to prevent accidental in-flight opening of the doors, it could happen that the latches did catch well, but such was impossible to verify from outside. The tragic was, that the problem was well known, since it already had caused an incident. In June 1972, the cargo door of an American Airlines DC-10 had opened in mid-air and broken off, in about the same conditions as on the Turkish Airlines plane, but without fatal damage to the control cables, so the plane had landed safely. After the latter incident, recommendations for improvement of the closing system were issued, which were however not compulsory. On that Sunday afternoon at Orly, luggage was handled by operators who did not understand the English recommendations on the cargo door, and there was no supervision on the appropriate closing of the doors.
At the time, it was the most deadly air disaster ever. It is still the most deadly disaster of a DC-10, the most deadly air crash in France, and of a crash not involving a Boeing 747. Although it was not the first deadly accident of the then new wide-body fleet (that was a L-1011 in the Everglades, Florida at Christmas 1972, when pilots failed to monitor altitude during descent, while focused on a broken lightbulb of the landing gear indicator), the immense death toll of Flight 981 suddenly drew attention on the possible consequences of flying hundreds of passengers when things could go wrong.
In the 1960’s, travel by air was merely ‘something for the rich’ (since a ticket easily could cost a middle class worker’s month salary), and the risk of dying in a crash was hence perceived as just a worry for these flying rich. Air travel had an aura of glamour, from which the word “jet-set” originated, the happy few who could afford an airline ticket. But with the introduction of widebody aircraft, tickets were becoming affordable to a larger population. Much of the passengers of flight 981 were not rich and wealthy folks, but, for instance, there was a group of tens of English rugby supporters, returning from assisting a France-England encounter in Paris. This changed the popular attitude towards the phenomenon of air disasters. The crash was a topic of public debate about airline safety, and a of lot of annoyance because the disaster could have been avoided, since the problem was known.
Darkprincess69
High Priestess of Slaanesh
In fact the US FAA after the first cargo door incident involving a DC-10 that took place on 12th June 1972, originally issued an AD (Airworthiness Directive) - an absolutely compulsory set of instructions that mandated a number actions that had to be taken following their accident investigation (redesigning the cargo door locking mechanism was the main one, along with strengthening the cabin floor and adding a small viewing window in the cargo door so that ), before the type would be re-certified to return to commercial service but McDonnell Douglas - which has now been swallowed up by Boeing) lobbied the FAA to reduce it to an SB (Service Bulletin), citing the time and money that it would cost in order to carry out the necessary works. The problem with an SB is that it was, as you correctly pointed out, merely an advisory rather than a mandatory order unlike a full AD, and while some airlines did some of the required work, none of them carried out all the modifications.
Needless to say, a full AD was issued following the Turkish Airlines accident and all DC-10s around the world were grounded until the works had been carried out.
Incidentally, the DC-10 was plagued with issues and several accidents following its introduction, to the point where it had gained a reputation among passengers for being unsafe. Later versions improved a lot of the early design flaws culminating in the MD-11 variant, which eventually became one of the safest aircraft in service, but it never really recovered from its damaged reputation and was completely retired from passenger operations ten years ago in February 2014, other than one solitary aircraft still being flown by TAB Airlines, which was known to be still in service as of January 2023. Today, the type is really only operated by a handful of cargo airlines and a few air forces around the world still fly the military versions, such as the KC-10 tanker.
It's unfortunate that the FAA had acted in a manner subservient to the economic concerns of the big corporations, who have repeatedly been seen to cut corners when it comes to safety - something that has reared its ugly head again very recently involving the door plug blowout on a Boeing 737 Max-9 on 5th January 2024 (Alaska Airlines Flight 1282), caused by improper maintenance operations and inadequate oversight - the fact that nobody was killed or seriously injured in this latest incident was truly miraculous, thanks in no small part to the skill and professionalism of the flight crew...
wulf
God-Emperor
This may not have been the origin of the term '*tombstone mentality', but it does serve as a shining example of it.
* meaning; the cost of fixing the problem is too high until a certain number of people are killed because of it. Cost-benefit in human lives.
The FAA has been accused of putting more emphasis on promoting air travel and the aviation industry, than doing it's intended job of safety oversight and regualtion many times before. They do they usual procedural makeovers to 'fix' problems, but eventually fall back into the pattern of negotiating with airlines and manufacturers about cost-benefit. This effectively puts fight safety in the hands of entities that continously look at the bottom line, and lets them operate on the honor system of self policing.
However, I don't think the recent door plug incident can be blamed on FAA oversight entirely. That problem was created at the point of manufacture, and a quality control/inspection issue that clearly belonged to Boeing. The four bolts weren't only not installed properly, they weren't installed at all, which is a huge failure of inspection procedures and completely inexcusable.
Darkprincess69
High Priestess of Slaanesh
You're absolutely right of course - this latest incident was solely down to the inadequacies of those responsible for assembling the door plug and fitting it to the airframe.
It's since emerged that for several flights prior to the incident, a number of passengers had reported a whistling sound coming from the affected area (clearly indicating a less than perfect seal around the door plug) and that it had been reported, but seemingly no investigation was made, which somewhat points the finger at Alaska Airlines maintenance section and/or a management failure with critical information not being passed on.
Additionally, a few pilots had reported some minor issues with the cabin pressurisation systems in the days leading up to the eventual blow out - Again, no proper investigation of this seems to have been made
While Boeing (Actually Spirit Aerospace, operating as subcontractors to Boeing, although with Boeing staff on site to oversee the works) quite rightly are being held responsible for the incident, the failure to act on (or at the very least investigate) multiple reports of unusual sounds and pressurisation issues points to some very serious failings within Alaska Airlines itself.
This time, they were very lucky that the blowout occurred at a relatively low altitude of 16000 feet - had this happened at the cruising altitude of around 35000 feet, the greater pressure differential may well have led to a catastophic in-flight breakup with likely no survivors
This was a very close call - The fact that nobody was occupying the seat immediately next to the door plug was just down to extremely good luck.
Hopefully the FAA will do their job and force both manufacturers and operators to step up their game when it comes to safety inspections. Modern air travel is extremely safe, but incidents like this serve to warn everybody in the industry that aviation is no place for complacency and slipshod procedures...
Frank Petrexa
Tribune
If I recall Spirit Aerospace was spun off from Boeing. I read an op-ed that said that the merger with McDonald-Douglas "diluted" Boeing's engineering culture--many of the top managers in the merged company were "bean counters" and not engineers. One of the recent CEO's was Jim McNerney from GE who tried to employ Jack Welch's "efficiency" techniques at Boeing--always analyze for costs first, and make reducing those the main goal . Welch had a PhD in chemical engineering, and owed his rise to his success in inventing a new plastic (he ended up selling off the GE plastics division). The book "Power Failure", based on extensive interviews, tells the story. The new plastic was great, but as its use spread it turned out to age poorly. Welch and his team were desperate. There had been a bookish, mousy chemist in the division who never went on the drinking, womanizing sprees that Welch used to build a culture of confidence. The poor guy left, just didn't fit in. In desperation they looked at his lab notes. It turns out he had discovered the problem AND solved it.You're absolutely right of course - this latest incident was solely down to the inadequacies of those responsible for assembling the door plug and fitting it to the airframe.
It's since emerged that for several flights prior to the incident, a number of passengers had reported a whistling sound coming from the affected area (clearly indicating a less than perfect seal around the door plug) and that it had been reported, but seemingly no investigation was made, which somewhat points the finger at Alaska Airlines maintenance section and/or a management failure with critical information not being passed on.
Additionally, a few pilots had reported some minor issues with the cabin pressurisation systems in the days leading up to the eventual blow out - Again, no proper investigation of this seems to have been made
While Boeing (Actually Spirit Aerospace, operating as subcontractors to Boeing, although with Boeing staff on site to oversee the works) quite rightly are being held responsible for the incident, the failure to act on (or at the very least investigate) multiple reports of unusual sounds and pressurisation issues points to some very serious failings within Alaska Airlines itself.
This time, they were very lucky that the blowout occurred at a relatively low altitude of 16000 feet - had this happened at the cruising altitude of around 35000 feet, the greater pressure differential may well have led to a catastophic in-flight breakup with likely no survivors
This was a very close call - The fact that nobody was occupying the seat immediately next to the door plug was just down to extremely good luck.
Hopefully the FAA will do their job and force both manufacturers and operators to step up their game when it comes to safety inspections. Modern air travel is extremely safe, but incidents like this serve to warn everybody in the industry that aviation is no place for complacency and slipshod procedures...
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wulf
God-Emperor
The (now) Spirit Aerospace was originally known as Boeing Plant 2, and was built in 1942 & 43 specially to build the B-29 during ww2, in Wichita Kansas. I live about 30 miles from it, and have many friends and relatives who have worked there over the years. Boeing sold the entire operation to Onex Corp based in Toronto Canada in 2005 and became Spirit. Not very much changed there actually, and they kept doing what they were doing all along... making fuselages for the commercial division in Washington. I can't speak about now, but a good friend of mine worked there in inspection for 25 years till retirement a few years ago. He told me they always had a good QC reputation up untill a few years after the sale, then things started going downhill.You're absolutely right of course - this latest incident was solely down to the inadequacies of those responsible for assembling the door plug and fitting it to the airframe.
It's since emerged that for several flights prior to the incident, a number of passengers had reported a whistling sound coming from the affected area (clearly indicating a less than perfect seal around the door plug) and that it had been reported, but seemingly no investigation was made, which somewhat points the finger at Alaska Airlines maintenance section and/or a management failure with critical information not being passed on.
Additionally, a few pilots had reported some minor issues with the cabin pressurisation systems in the days leading up to the eventual blow out - Again, no proper investigation of this seems to have been made
While Boeing (Actually Spirit Aerospace, operating as subcontractors to Boeing, although with Boeing staff on site to oversee the works) quite rightly are being held responsible for the incident, the failure to act on (or at the very least investigate) multiple reports of unusual sounds and pressurisation issues points to some very serious failings within Alaska Airlines itself.
I had not heard of those prior issues being reported, so Alaska Airlines must share the blame for lax attitudes about troubleshooting write-ups and maintenence in general... which makes my point about for profit airline companies making safety of flight decisions that involve cost and aircraft flight scheduling. If it's a grey area where there's no clear obvious problem, they will let it go rather than bust the maintenence budget..... and gamble with people's lives.This time, they were very lucky that the blowout occurred at a relatively low altitude of 16000 feet - had this happened at the cruising altitude of around 35000 feet, the greater pressure differential may well have led to a catastophic in-flight breakup with likely no survivors
This was a very close call - The fact that nobody was occupying the seat immediately next to the door plug was just down to extremely good luck.
Hopefully the FAA will do their job and force both manufacturers and operators to step up their game when it comes to safety inspections. Modern air travel is extremely safe, but incidents like this serve to warn everybody in the industry that aviation is no place for complacency and slipshod procedures...
Darkprincess69
High Priestess of Slaanesh
Yeah that's correct. It's still very much under the direct control of Boeing management, so we can safely assume that the split was made for financial and/or political reasons (probably related to tax in some way or other)
Unfortunately this always seems to be the case with large corporate mergers. When two large companies are combined, there is an inevitable duplication of staff, so clearly some people are always going to be have to let go of, but unfortunately, the management are the ones who end up wielding the axe, and they're never going to cut their own departments, so it always ends up being the actual skilled workers who will bear the brunt of the redundancies, generally with those having the longest service records being the first to go as they're often the most expensive to retain.
The end result of this of course is that the company ends up being somewhat de-skilled
The history of industrial disasters clearly illustrates that this is generally the root of a great many major incidents
There's a time and a place to make cost savings, but it should never be in areas related to safety, though sadly, it often is, with the maintenance section usually being the first to suffer
Darkprincess69
High Priestess of Slaanesh
Hard to believe it was ten years ago already!
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
And nothing found of it but a few debris washed ashore on east African coasts. With all the available technology, it is hard to believe that such a big plane can vanish like that!
Darkprincess69
High Priestess of Slaanesh
There's little doubt among the investigators as to what actually happened, and a pretty good idea of where the main wreckage is likely to be found, but deep sea searches are still very complex and expensive, so only the most affluent nations can commit the money and resources to such a search, which may take months or even years, even when you know roughly where to look. Unfortunately the Malaysian government, for reasons best known only to itself, has been exerting a lot of international pressure in order to prevent any further searches from taking place
I'm not really much of a conspiracy theorist, but there is a widely-held belief, among experts as well as armchair investigators, that for some reason, they don't want it found - or at least they don't seem to want any actual evidence recovered (assuming any still exists)
There have been several theories put forward as to why this may be the case, many of which are centered around the links between the Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and the political elite of Malaysia. How credible these of course remain a matter of debate.
Ultimately if the wreckage of MH370 is ever going to be found, it will likely be by the efforts of rich individuals with the money and time to carry out their own investigations, and there are not many of them in the world. James Cameron maybe, or somebody like him, but otherwise there no longer seems to be much, if any interest in continuing to search for the missing plane
Even then, they may face serious political opposition from Malaysia and possibly Australia, who currently seem to not want to upset the Malaysian government, but in my opinion, this is still the most likely way that any real evidence is ever going to be found going forward
There has been talk of a renewed search to take place this year to be carried out by Ocean Infinity, a marine robotics company based in Austin, Texas. There have been discussions about this since 2022 but so far the Malaysian government has refused permission for any future searches. I guess that Ocean Infinity could just go ahead and conduct their search without permission anyway - after all, the search area is in international waters - but maybe they would rather not draw the ire of the Malaysian government and possibly face repercussions back home as a result.
Whichever way you cut it, politics fucking stinks
malins
Stumbling Seeker
Well the absolutely most common 'conspiracy' that happens in the real world is of course the cover-up.
It doesn't require postulating alien lizard-men or crazy mental gymnastics about coordination etc.
When something goes badly wrong in a large organization managing complex processes, it is practically the default reflex to circle the wagons and resist independent inspection from the outside.
Even if the org isn't especially corrupted, there's almost inevitably been some corner-cutting and creative interpretation of rules. No one wants to take the blame which is why it sometimes takes the rare character of the 'whistleblower' who for some reason defects from the group interest.
Now isolating yourself from your previous ingroup and exposing yourself to all sorts of publicity and attacks as a whistleblower is quite stressful. Especially stressful of course is the phase when you'e giving testimony in a lawsuit. Stress is generally unhealthy, physically as well as mentally, which means that sometimes whistleblowers will have a higher likelyhood of experiencing stress-related medical issues like heart conditions, or rapid unscheduled cranial disassembly. It remains a risky choice especially if you 'retired on health grounds' in the first place.
Hugin&Munin
Presenter Of Images
On March 23, 2001, the Russian space station "Mir" (Peace) was brought down in a controlled manner. Pieces of debris that had not previously burned up fell into the Pacific at 7 a.m. Central European Time. The "Mir" was launched into space in 1986 for research purposes and was considered a prestige project in Soviet space travel.
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
Don't blame me!
The 1990's were not the best decade for Airbus industries. Pilots not always had adapted to the control design concepts, characteristic of the new, computer monitored model A320, and to the general philosophy of Airbus systems. This 'digital' approach differed drastically from, for instance the Tupolevs and Ilyushins the Russian pilots were probably used to fly with, but also from Boeing's long held philosophy.
Pilots missed crucial information, because they had to pick up more with their eyes and less with their ears or senses, as they were used to with older models, or they were lacking full insight in the way the systems worked. Such also caused several crashes with the older model A310 in the 1990's, like Aeroflot Flight 593. Although (legally prohibited) putting a kid in the pilot's seat was just one step of the chain of events that led to the crash, because the pilots were not fully familiar with all the systems of their aircraft, and hence reacted too late.
Marcius
Tribune
Twenty-five year ago today, on 24 March 1999, NATO began to implement, ah, a peaceful solution in Kosovo by military means.
Who holds himself apart
Lets his pride rise.
Him who despises us
We'll destroy.
And cruelty becomes
His enterprise.
Him who despises us
We'll destroy.
Slobodan Milošević was so easy to hate, and 'humanitarian intervention' just rolled off the tongue in the halcyon, West Wing-y late 90s -- if Peter Grimes's apprentices kept dying on him, poor Albanians weren't doing all that well either in what then was Yugoslavia. I suppose that the war benefited the Kosovars somewhat.
Others watched and seethed.
Who holds himself apart
Lets his pride rise.
Him who despises us
We'll destroy.
And cruelty becomes
His enterprise.
Him who despises us
We'll destroy.
Slobodan Milošević was so easy to hate, and 'humanitarian intervention' just rolled off the tongue in the halcyon, West Wing-y late 90s -- if Peter Grimes's apprentices kept dying on him, poor Albanians weren't doing all that well either in what then was Yugoslavia. I suppose that the war benefited the Kosovars somewhat.
Others watched and seethed.
Hugin&Munin
Presenter Of Images
On March 24, 2015, a Germanwings Airbus 320 aircraft crashed in the southern French Alps. All 150 inmates die, including 16 students and two teachers from North Rhine-Westphalia. It later turns out that the co-pilot was suffering from depression. He intentionally crashed the plane after locking the pilot out of the cockpit.
The French and German judiciaries discontinue the manslaughter proceedings. The relatives' claims for compensation for pain and suffering were also dismissed in several instances. After the crash, several airlines in Europe tightened their cockpit rules: two crew members should be in the pilot's cabin at all times.
The French and German judiciaries discontinue the manslaughter proceedings. The relatives' claims for compensation for pain and suffering were also dismissed in several instances. After the crash, several airlines in Europe tightened their cockpit rules: two crew members should be in the pilot's cabin at all times.
