I'm normally the one voice explaining how that thing that looks scary is actually not that big of a deal.
Nope, this shit is fucked. Airlines need to be much more tightly regulated and inspections need to be much more in-depth.
At this point, I'd settle for surface level inspections. I can see that wing is falling apart from a 32 pixel thumbnail and my eyes shut.
I’ll try to keep things calm. From a pilot’s POV:
-Flight attendant says a passenger says the wing is falling apart.
-What? Oh, the slats.
-Parts coming off the airplane can damage other parts (I.e., be sucked into an engine, causing more immediate problems). Divert and execute a precautionary landing.
The plane isn’t going to fall out of the sky (unless the wing really does start to come apart) The slat is a movable part that extends the wing’s surface area to produce more lift on takeoff and landing thereby reducing required runway length. When it comes down to it you don’t really need the flaps and slats to land. Just find a nice long runway you can haul ass into. I’ve had the slats go kaput on me once. Never had them fall off though
There are guys flying these planes younger than the planes themselves. The only real thing we can learn from this is that airlines cling onto aging airplanes, which was already an open secret anyway. Nothing’s gonna change until someone dies, but the dying is not gonna be coming from the slats coming apart.
My first job I flew planes older than my dad.
There are guys flying these planes younger than the planes themselves. The only real thing we can learn from this is that airlines cling onto aging airplanes, which was already an open secret anyway. Nothing’s gonna change until someone dies, but the dying is not gonna be coming from the slats coming apart.
My first job I flew planes older than my dad.
Air Zimbabwe still uses the Boeing 737-200s with the Pratt & Whitney low bypass turbofan engines. The same engine that the Boeing 727 used, as well as various military aircraft from the 1960s. Everytime they fly close to where I live, I get a heart attack because the engines are so damn loud. It's honestly a miracle they still fly, but the airline is forced to use them because Zimbabwe is broke, and because apparently the 737-200 has the ability to land on gravel runways with an "unpaved strip kit" you could get from Boeing. According to Wikipedia, the kit consists of a vortex generator in front of the engine, and a gravel deflector on the nose landing gear.
Ahh the -200s. These types of operations operate under the assumption (almost always correctly) that when an engine dies it will only be one of them.
Honestly though the more pressing issue is the insane amount of pressurization cycles they’ve gone through over decades of usage on regularly scheduled commercial flights. Given enough time, probably another 2-3 decades of usage, eventually the pressure bulkhead is just gonna blow and take out part of the vertical stabilizer with it. And that will kill you. Well maybe not everyone but just about in that range.
Incidentally this is why Cessnas have greater longevity than airliners. They aren’t pressurized so there is far less stress on the airframe.
Yeah only one of the Air Zimbabwe 737-200s is currently airworthy, probably because of the reasons you mentioned with regards to pressurisation cycles.
It flew as recently as 2 weeks ago lol. Crazy to think that the engines are that loud inside the plane.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I remember going with a plane nerd to visit the airport to take photographs of it, after he saw it on flight radar. Seeing it on the runway and take off was like going back in time in a way. It's a cool looking plane, I'll give it that. And the sound is cool when you are watching it take off. Not so cool when it wakes you up though.
Then I'll do it for you: Yes, that thing looks scary, but it's only the slat. The plane can fly without it, but the landing will have to be done at slightly higher than normal speed. The wing itself is made from much stronger material.
I'm curious about the cause, though. Could have been initiated by a bird strike.
The issue I have with this isn't the slat itself, but that the plane took off with this entirely unmanaged. Tape is fine, even missing bolts are fine, this is not something that you're just allowed to ignore. Deferred maintenance is never a good idea.
I didn't see anything in the linked article about it looking like that before takeoff, though? I'm having a hard time believing that the pilot would just think "meh, it's fine" if it was discovered during the preflight walk-around.
There is no way they took off with it looking like this. If you did it could cost you your license depending on the mood the local FAA office is in.
Do you think it was in flight damage like a minor birdstrike to the wing?
Passengers on the flight said they heard and felt the vibration caused by turbulence immediately during the takeoff sequence, too soon for a bird strike. Bird strikes also don't usually look like this.
cw: animal death
They're usually either going to bounce off and leave a pink splatter or smear, or will be heavy enough that they caused more substantial damage at a single point, along with a red smear.
We can't rule out a bird strike without an investigation, but this doesn't seem likely to me.
I'm not sure I'd want to be doing a faster than normal landing in a plane that's already showing signs of falling apart, but I am reassured.
Well if you used the slower speed the plane really will fall out of the sky. Slats and flaps generate extra lift to enable taking off and landing at slower speeds and therefore using shorter runways.
The slat could have been hit by something, so we don’t know about the falling apart part; failure of the slat isn’t going to down the plane but it will ground it.
Ralph Nader said they replaced the engineers with bean counters.
double the airplanes with Half the Workforce , or some other Neocon brain shit ..
Literally factoring this into my travel plans in the future. Is there a easy to navigate site that pairs airlines with manufacturers they use in their fleet?
www.flightaware.com or www.flightstats.com/v2
Plug in flight number and there is a plane details section at the bottom
I did this last week, was told I would be on an Airbus and was disappointed to find myself on a 777. I was very confused
Google flights (I know, I know) has it. Also, airlines generally prefer one manufacturer to simplify logistics, so you could look up the 'fleet' section on their Wikipedia page
Remember 2 years ago when Western countries began to sanction Russia, all the libs on Twitter were gushing about how Russian planes will soon fall out of the sky in 6 months because no Western spare parts?
Meanwhile, Russia has started serial production of its domestic made MS-21 airliner. I wonder if there is a market for the third world countries now that Boeing’s reputation is falling apart?
Remember how mayos blamed it on Malaysians being shitty pilots back in 2018
And the Indonesian and Ethiopian pilots during the first 737 MAX scandals in 2020.
It is not that rosy of a picture for them. Russia is having to cannibalize some of its fleet for spare parts and everything else had to be sourced from the black/grey markets which is like yeah sure grifting or whatever but there is a point to be made that aviation safety does rely on quality control and you can't just replace stuff that easily. Yes of course the ability to manufacture and sell these parts is tightly controlled, imperialism and all, but it is all fine and good until the first accident isn't?
To be clear I don't think those libs were arguing in good faith back then, but I also don't think having a fleet of western aircraft maintained by parallel market parts is particularly good principle either.
If anything I'd say this is very much against any sort of leftist principle for me, air travel is not essential and these are capitalist business, the idea of even putting innocent workers safety at risk for a modern convenience like that isn't a win, maybe they could have just taken that L, reduced air travel to the upmost essential only and then used this opportunity build some trains or something.
Instead when you read up on what Russia is trying to do to keep the whole thing running it is just old porky time we'll do anything and it is literaly the quote from
It is not that rosy of a picture for them. Russia is having to cannibalize some of its fleet for spare parts and everything else had to be sourced from the black/grey markets which is like yeah sure grifting or whatever but there is a point to be made that aviation safety does rely on quality control and you can't just replace stuff that easily. Yes of course the ability to manufacture and sell these parts is tightly controlled, imperialism and all, but it is all fine and good until the first accident isn't?
Of course, every sanctioned country does that. What are they supposed to do? They are being sanctioned with the purpose of stifling their economy, of course they don’t have the luxury but to take measures to mitigate that problem as far as they can take it.
And it’s not like Russia is not doing anything about it. The state placed an order of 500 domestic built airliners over the next 10 years, of which a planned production of 270 MS-21 over the next 8 years (6 will be built this year, and by 2030 the production is supposed to ramp up to 70 units per year, which is ambitious to say the least). The goal is to completely replace foreign airliners with domestic made ones.
maybe they could have just taken that L, reduced air travel to the upmost essential only and then used this opportunity build some trains or something.
They’ve not been allowed to fly into most of Europe and the US, which were the major flight routes for Russia. The flights are already reduced thanks to the sanctions.
And trains are being built. The import substitution will take time because they still used Western parts for their carriages, but it’s only a matter of time before these parts are fully localized.
You know what they say Boeing is short for
- Break
- Off
- Every
- Important
- Necessary
- Gear
The irony of 9/11 is that if you just
instead of doing adventurism USamerican planes will begin to crash into buildings all on their ownIn 10 years no one will believe
because the idea of commercial aircraft being under that much control will be considered ludicrous
That's an old airplane. The first ones started flying over 40 years ago.
i honestly thought this was a melina special when i first saw the post title
what the fuck. deeply unserious country
Between this stuff and the people who are trying to open emergency exits during flights, flying is starting to make me nervous. It's already claustrophobic enough without these incidents on top
pls not boeing pls not boeing, gah it's boeing. 757-200, that's a 41 year old plane, so it's not that bad though.
At this point, I'm just waiting for an airliner to crash in the middle of Kansas or something. This is egregious.
It'll be glossed over, exactly like the East Palestine derailment was. We could have planes falling out of the sky on a weekly basis and I don't think it would change much tbh
