Defects In Aging Passenger Jets Exposed [Boeing]

KIRO 7 Eyewitness News Special Report ^ | 05.05.2004 | Kris Halsne

[Larry Lucido]

I guess Bondo wouldn't help a whole lot with this.

[COEXERJ145]

Age of an aircraft is not an issue. The real issue is how well is it inspected and maintained. Like any piece of equipment, an aircraft must be serviced and undergo regular maintenance or else it will suffer some kind of structural failure.

Look at how many 707's, 727's, DC-8's, and DC-9's are still flying after 30-40+ years of service.

[delapaz]

Heck there are DC-3's still flying.

[COEXERJ145]

Heck there are DC-3's still flying.

Exactly. Another example, though not a passenger aircraft, is the B-52.

[rageaholic]

those pesky box cutters again!

[al baby]

Age of an aircraft is not an issue.

More at issue is cycles take off and landing pressurized de pressurize and also those pesky

"center fuel tanks"

[COEXERJ145]

More at issue is cycles

Yeah, that's correct and I feel stupid for not saying it. DOH! :)

[Lexinom]

Amen to that. It's a treat, anymore, to see one of those venerable 4-engine monsters fly over... All the other planes are pretty much the same - blah.

[Wings-n-Wind]

Knowledgeable sources report that the marginally famed EU aircraft consortium also has some unique ideas and cost-saving techniques on what would otherwise be known as construcive metallurgy....
Hence the nickname "scare-bus".....

Regards,

[Wings-n-Wind]

Knowledgeable sources report that the marginally famed EU aircraft consortium also has some unique ideas and cost-saving techniques on what would otherwise be known as construcive metallurgy....
Hence the nickname "scare-bus".....

Regards,

[lowbridge]

Look at how many 707's, 727's, DC-8's, and DC-9's are still flying after 30-40+ years of service.

I dont look back at the 40 years of service that one plane might have performed. I worry about the upcoming 41st year.

[Cicero]

It's not a Boeing issue, it's a box-cutter issue. Obviously you don't take a knife to an airplane wing.

This story couldn't come at a worse time, however. Last month's balance of payments deficit shot up because of massive imports from Airbus Industries.

[Sen Jack S. Fogbound]

"Exactly. Another example, though not a passenger aircraft, is the B-52."

The youngest B-52 is at least 40 years old! Amazing!

[Sen Jack S. Fogbound]

A total of 744 B-52s were built with the last, a B-52H, delivered in October 1962.

[Monty22]

I don't fly, but if I had to it would be 737-600+ or 777 only now. I want something brand new.

[sionnsar]

KIRO 7 Eyewitness News Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne discovers a big new problem for Boeing, centered on "lap-joint metal fatigue".

I've seen this air-blown airhead. I won't talk about (IMHO) he couldn't even discover, but to "discover" something like this -- naah, somebody told him.

But then the self-promotional hype of Seattle television "news" is so awful I quit watching it sometime in back in the 80s. The early 80s... (i.e. just after I moved there).

[Flavius]

Hmmm was the study done by the Airbus...

[SW6906]

Yeesh. What a sensationalistic hit-piece article of crap. Boeing has been aware of and publicly dealing with the lap joint issue for years!! I just talked to a guy last week about it!

I love how they are Boeing jets to KIRO, even the ones that were sold 30 years ago! Boeing hasn't made 737-200s for a long time!

Once the airplane is sold to an airline, it is the airline's responsibility to maintain it. Boeing does advise the airlines on how to maintain the aircraft and problems to look out for, but if the airline doesn't follow federally-prescribed and audited maintenance, it is not Boeing's fault when that airplane falls apart.

Is it Ford's fault that the floor of the trunk of my 1972 Maverick rusted through because I failed to check and maintain the seals on a 30+ year-old car and to make sure water that got in didn't sit there?

[Lexinom]

Well... I'm not an aviation engineering expert, but if the trend in automobiles has ANY carryover to aviation (doesn't have to be full carryover) maybe we do have something to worry about. The B707 made its first flight in 1954; the DC-8: 1958. The only (big, civil) jet before that was the Comet, and boy, what I wouldn't give to see and hear one of those in flight!!!

Having said all that, for some of us the worry over the "cost measures" taken by companies who have more concern over the "bottom line" than over human life - which, BTW, has been considerably cheapened over the last 50 years - exceeds concern over the airworthiness of older aircraft which were built in a different era with a different mindset.