But a few years later, the brand new British jet airliner, the comet had a series of crashes. The cause? Metal fatigue, but not the tail but from the metal around too large windows.
Lots of folk think the book and movie were inspired by the Comet crashes, but it was exactly the opposite,
It is interesting that on the “Reindeer” plane in the movie the windows were VERY large.
I was impressed and wanted to fly on a plane like that, but considering your comment, not any more! It foreshadowed the “Comet!”
(Honestly, I thought they were too big and were just a movie set, which of course, they were.)
Their crew and cabin up front was like as occupied as the bridge of the Star Trek Enterprises!
I might have to read the books.
The actual plane is the metal fatigue around the windows was the De Havilland Comet.
The following 2 comments are copied from the IMDB.com website page about the movie:
“It is particularly notable that the Reindeer aircraft has square windows. The Comet 1 jetliner, which had a number of disastrous crashes a few years later, did so due to metal fatigue caused by stress around its square windows. Later models of the Comet had oval windows.”
“The plane used for the “Rutland Reindeer” is actually a heavily modified Handley Page HP-70 Halifax. In the film it has the fake registration G-AFOH. Its real registration was G-AJNW. This was a C.VIII version used for cargo and passenger transport. It flew 116 missions during the Berlin Airlift. After its numerous modifications for this film, it was unflyable and was scrapped after production was finished.”