Window on Boeing 737 Cracks During Flight in Japan

The Daily Beast ^ | Jan. 13, 2024 | Edith Olmsted

[MinorityRepublican]

A Boeing 737 plane in Japan was forced to return to its point of departure on Saturday after a crack appeared in the window of the plane’s cockpit.

The All Nippon Airways (ANA) domestic flight had left the city of Sapporo en route to Toyama, before turning around for an emergency landing. No one onboard was injured, a spokesperson for the airline said.

John Strickland, an expert aviation consultant said that although the crack was in the outermost of the four-layered window, cracks like it “can be pretty dangerous if not fixed,” according to the BBC.

“The crack was not something that affected the flight’s control or pressurization,” the ANA spokesperson said.

This is the second safety issue with a Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft in as many weeks, after a door panel blew off of an Alaska Airlines flight that was departing from Portland Oregon.

On Friday, the FAA extended the grounding of Boeing 737 Max 9 planes indefinitely.

[Torahman]

Must see: Movie (UK-1951) Starring Jimmy Stewart: “No Highway in the Sky”. Deals with Metal Fatigue in Airliners. A great and prophetic film. Deals with this subject.

[struggle]

How many people are flying to Toyama, like 3?

[cpdiii]

When meritocracy is not used, failure always follows.

In battle would you rather be led by General Patton or a diversity candidate? It is your ass on the line!

[pfflier]

Windshield cracks and damage on airplanes are not that uncommon. This just happens to be a 737.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/columnist/cox/2019/08/08/ask-captain-how-dangerous-cracked-cockpit-windshield/1943362001/

[cpdiii]

I suspect the window door plug was well designed and good. This is old technology and nothing new. I suspect poor installation was the problem due to lack of standards on the assembly line. The real question is why the lack of standards.

[pfflier]

In those two crashes there were major questions about the quality of pilot training vs US protocols for handling emergencies.

[crusty old prospector]

Look up the 717.

[MinorityRepublican]

In those two crashes there were major questions about the quality of pilot training vs US protocols for handling emergencies.

Historically, most of the American pilots have served time in the military. So they have experience in dealing with emergencies. But now we are having an increasing number of civilian pilots. And they are becoming more diverse. So their training is unlikely going to be like it was in the past.

So that is going to be a problem when they're flying the 737 Max.

[dfwgator]

[Bonemaker]

Airbus has an aeronautical engineer CEO, while Boeing has an accountant.

[Bonemaker]

Any Japanese employee found responsible would run a sword through his guts while an American in the same boat would be transferred to a different section.

[Peter ODonnell]

has anyone considered the role of Godzilla in this event?

[dfwgator]

Oh no, there goes Tokyo!

[thecodont]

Probably true. However, present-day Boeing is obviously no longer the premier company that it once was. The MCAS debacle was a shocking failure at every level that still calls into serious question Boeing’s management priorities. They never should have allowed an aircraft to be designed with negative stability, and then tried to quietly paper over the deficiency with (defective) software that they hid from the flight crews. Their priority in that case was clearly not safety, but instead the desire to save time and money by preventing the Max from having to be certified as a new design. Several hundred people are now dead as a direct result of their misplaced priorities. They should have designed an entirely new aircraft. But barring that, they should at least have been transparent about the fact that retrofitting the aging 737 airframe with engines so large that they had to be shifted forward, causing the aircraft to pitch up in turns, was being counteracted through novel software that would control the trim in an unintuitive manner.

What an awful thing, so many lives lost because they thought structure could be fixed with software, to save money.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuvering_Characteristics_Augmentation_System

[pfflier]

Yes it's true military flying is much different and it can involve flying a damaged or marginalized airplane that civil pilots rarely encounter.

I also think going into the mix is that pilots, in general, are becoming more systems managers and less aviators.

The Air France crash, years ago in the Atlantic, was a classic demonstration of that. The crew didn't recognize or know they had to fly out of a stall that their automated systems created with a frozen pitot tube.

[dfwgator]

Planes can pretty much fly themselves, but the pilot is there for when things go wrong.

[pfflier]

Yup, planes pretty much fly themselves until something goes wrong. Just like Tesla cars.

[TalBlack]

I also think going into the mix is that pilots, in general, are becoming more systems managers and less aviators.

Bingo. How much of what used to be the “work” of a flight that is thrown off to software is scary.

[SaxxonWoods]

Thanks.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Yep. I got called a “hater” and “alarmist” for saying the same thing last week. I don’t care. They blew it for me.