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this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2024
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I'm normally the one voice explaining how that thing that looks scary is actually not that big of a deal.
Nope, this shit is fucked. Airlines need to be much more tightly regulated and inspections need to be much more in-depth.
At this point, I'd settle for surface level inspections. I can see that wing is falling apart from a 32 pixel thumbnail and my eyes shut.
I’ll try to keep things calm. From a pilot’s POV:
-Flight attendant says a passenger says the wing is falling apart.
-What? Oh, the slats.
-Parts coming off the airplane can damage other parts (I.e., be sucked into an engine, causing more immediate problems). Divert and execute a precautionary landing.
The plane isn’t going to fall out of the sky (unless the wing really does start to come apart) The slat is a movable part that extends the wing’s surface area to produce more lift on takeoff and landing thereby reducing required runway length. When it comes down to it you don’t really need the flaps and slats to land. Just find a nice long runway you can haul ass into. I’ve had the slats go kaput on me once. Never had them fall off though
There are guys flying these planes younger than the planes themselves. The only real thing we can learn from this is that airlines cling onto aging airplanes, which was already an open secret anyway. Nothing’s gonna change until someone dies, but the dying is not gonna be coming from the slats coming apart.
My first job I flew planes older than my dad.
Air Zimbabwe still uses the Boeing 737-200s with the Pratt & Whitney low bypass turbofan engines. The same engine that the Boeing 727 used, as well as various military aircraft from the 1960s. Everytime they fly close to where I live, I get a heart attack because the engines are so damn loud. It's honestly a miracle they still fly, but the airline is forced to use them because Zimbabwe is broke, and because apparently the 737-200 has the ability to land on gravel runways with an "unpaved strip kit" you could get from Boeing. According to Wikipedia, the kit consists of a vortex generator in front of the engine, and a gravel deflector on the nose landing gear.
Ahh the -200s. These types of operations operate under the assumption (almost always correctly) that when an engine dies it will only be one of them.
Honestly though the more pressing issue is the insane amount of pressurization cycles they’ve gone through over decades of usage on regularly scheduled commercial flights. Given enough time, probably another 2-3 decades of usage, eventually the pressure bulkhead is just gonna blow and take out part of the vertical stabilizer with it. And that will kill you. Well maybe not everyone but just about in that range.
Incidentally this is why Cessnas have greater longevity than airliners. They aren’t pressurized so there is far less stress on the airframe.
Yeah only one of the Air Zimbabwe 737-200s is currently airworthy, probably because of the reasons you mentioned with regards to pressurisation cycles.
It flew as recently as 2 weeks ago lol. Crazy to think that the engines are that loud inside the plane.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I remember going with a plane nerd to visit the airport to take photographs of it, after he saw it on flight radar. Seeing it on the runway and take off was like going back in time in a way. It's a cool looking plane, I'll give it that. And the sound is cool when you are watching it take off. Not so cool when it wakes you up though.
Then I'll do it for you: Yes, that thing looks scary, but it's only the slat. The plane can fly without it, but the landing will have to be done at slightly higher than normal speed. The wing itself is made from much stronger material.
I'm curious about the cause, though. Could have been initiated by a bird strike.
The issue I have with this isn't the slat itself, but that the plane took off with this entirely unmanaged. Tape is fine, even missing bolts are fine, this is not something that you're just allowed to ignore. Deferred maintenance is never a good idea.
I didn't see anything in the linked article about it looking like that before takeoff, though? I'm having a hard time believing that the pilot would just think "meh, it's fine" if it was discovered during the preflight walk-around.
There is no way they took off with it looking like this. If you did it could cost you your license depending on the mood the local FAA office is in.
Do you think it was in flight damage like a minor birdstrike to the wing?
That doesn't actually appear to be what happened.
How can you tell?
Passengers on the flight said they heard and felt the vibration caused by turbulence immediately during the takeoff sequence, too soon for a bird strike. Bird strikes also don't usually look like this.
cw: animal death
They're usually either going to bounce off and leave a pink splatter or smear, or will be heavy enough that they caused more substantial damage at a single point, along with a red smear.We can't rule out a bird strike without an investigation, but this doesn't seem likely to me.
I'm not sure I'd want to be doing a faster than normal landing in a plane that's already showing signs of falling apart, but I am reassured.
Well if you used the slower speed the plane really will fall out of the sky. Slats and flaps generate extra lift to enable taking off and landing at slower speeds and therefore using shorter runways.
The slat could have been hit by something, so we don’t know about the falling apart part; failure of the slat isn’t going to down the plane but it will ground it.