Southwest 737-300 trou dans le fuselage

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Un incident inquiétant

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/07/16/329758/pictures-ntsb-releases-southwest-737-300-fuselage-pictures.html

PICTURES: NTSB releases Southwest 737-300 fuselage pictures
By John Croft
The US National Transportation Safety Board has released two pictures showing the internal and external skin damage to a Southwest Airlines 737-300 that experienced a rapid decompression while climbing through 34,000ft (10,363m) on a flight from Nashville to Baltimore on 13 July.

The crew of Flight 2294 declared an emergency and safely landed at the Yeager Airport in Charleston, West Virginia, where the aircraft is currently undergoing repairs by Southwest mechanics. Although oxygen masked were deployed during the incident, there were no injuries to the 126 passengers and five crewmembers.

NTSB says the incident left an hole measuring approximately 17in (43cm) by 8in (20cm). The aircraft’s aluminium skin in the area is 0.032in (0.8mm) thick with an additional 0.032in layer bonded to the interior surface at selected areas.

Pictured below is the interior portion of the damaged area, followed by the exterior area.

Officials say there was “no significant corrosion or obvious pre-existing mechanical damage” noted during the initial visual examination of the fracture.

The NTSB says it will perform detailed metallurgical examination of the skin section and the fracture surfaces in the coming days.

Sous le lien vous pourrez visualiser les photos et le belle taille du trou.

Autre lien, avec une photo "in situ"

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Southwest fuselage hole prompts Boeing 737 directive
By John Croft

The US FAA is proposing that operators of approximately 135 US-registered Boeing 737-300, -400 and -500 aircraft begin performing external non-destructive inspections of a certain area of the fuselage skin for evidence of fatigue cracks every 500 flights.

The proposed airworthiness directive (AD), to be published tomorrow, is the result of an in-flight skin rupture and depressurization of a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-300 in July.

The aircraft, enroute from Nashville to Baltimore, landed safety in Charleston, West Virginia after the incident with a 43cm (17in) by 20cm hole in the skin on the upper section of the rear fuselage between two adjacent stringers.

If finalized as written, the interim AD will make mandatory a 3 September service bulletin issued by Boeing calling for aircraft with 35,000 cycles or more to be inspected using eddy current or other non-destructive techniques every 500 cycles for signs of cracks. The incident aircraft had accumulated 42,569 cycles, according to the FAA.

Operators who have installed an external doubler in the area, as specified in a previous Boeing service bulletin, will not have to perform repetitive inspections after an initial check, providing the repair meets certain other criteria spelled out in the proposed AD.