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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/bu...pagewanted=all
Boeing Says It Didn’t Expect Cracks in 737s So Soon
By CHRISTINE HAUSER, JAD MOUAWAD and CHRISTOPHER DREW
A Boeing engineer said Tuesday that the company had projected a longer lifespan for the skin and the supporting joints of its older 737 jetliners and was surprised that serious cracks developed on one Southwest Airlines plane last Friday.
Paul Richter, a chief engineer for the older Boeing 737 models, said the plane maker had expected the parts to last 60,000 cycles of takeoffs and landings before cracks might form, while the jet that developed the hole on Friday had only 39,000 cycles. Southwest had done nothing wrong in maintaining the plane, Mr. Richter said.
He said Boeing had felt so confident about the joints that it did not even require airlines to inspect that part of the plane until it reached 60,000 cycles.
“I would say that it is regrettable that we had to accelerate our plans,” he said during a conference call with reporters.
Southwest Airlines said Tuesday that it had found minor subsurface cracks in a total of five passenger planes inspected after a hole opened in the roof of one of its 737s on Friday on a flight from Phoenix to Sacramento, forcing the airplane to make an emergency landing at a military base. It also said the inspection of two more aircraft would be completed in 24 hours.
Boeing Says It Didn’t Expect Cracks in 737s So Soon
By CHRISTINE HAUSER, JAD MOUAWAD and CHRISTOPHER DREW
A Boeing engineer said Tuesday that the company had projected a longer lifespan for the skin and the supporting joints of its older 737 jetliners and was surprised that serious cracks developed on one Southwest Airlines plane last Friday.
Paul Richter, a chief engineer for the older Boeing 737 models, said the plane maker had expected the parts to last 60,000 cycles of takeoffs and landings before cracks might form, while the jet that developed the hole on Friday had only 39,000 cycles. Southwest had done nothing wrong in maintaining the plane, Mr. Richter said.
He said Boeing had felt so confident about the joints that it did not even require airlines to inspect that part of the plane until it reached 60,000 cycles.
“I would say that it is regrettable that we had to accelerate our plans,” he said during a conference call with reporters.
Southwest Airlines said Tuesday that it had found minor subsurface cracks in a total of five passenger planes inspected after a hole opened in the roof of one of its 737s on Friday on a flight from Phoenix to Sacramento, forcing the airplane to make an emergency landing at a military base. It also said the inspection of two more aircraft would be completed in 24 hours.
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