Four years before the tail fell off an American Airlines plane in New York ... a jet of the same model experienced similar tail problems. Airbus officials ... said they did not know until last year that pressures on the earlier flight ... were strong enough to have broken off the plane's tail as it neared West Palm Beach, Fla., in April 1997.
... pilots used the rudder to try to steady a plane veering up and down and from side to side for about 34 seconds.
"Airbus never, ever warned American Airlines or any other airline that that we're aware of, or federal safety investigators, that they knew of previous incidents in which the vertical tail was nearly ripped off by the rudder reversals,"
Oh, those sneaky Frogs.
So9
While visual checks of the Flight 903 tail found no problems, an ultrasound inspection last year found damage at one point where the tail fin is connected to the fuselage. The tail, though still strong enough to meet regulations, was replaced, McConnell said.
So an ultasound found a bit of damage that didn't violate standards of strength, yet it was replaced anyway. But have all the other tails been ultrasound scanned? No. Why? Because it's not significant.
Are passengers' shoes inspected? Yes, because the shoe bomber and Flight 587 (the fatal one) proved that plastics explosives on board airliners are significant.
Why was the "opportunity" to blame the crash on terrorism passed up? Because people are afraid of terrorism now, and won't fly if that's the big ongoing threat. So we do inspections, make them feel safe, and carry on as they are left only to worry about the statistical improbability of their plane just falling out of the sky accidentally. That's just silly to cancel plans over that....