PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

What Causes the Metal Skin on an Airliner to Tear Apart?

On Friday, April 1, 2011, a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-300 experienced a rapid decompression when the metal fuselage skin tore apart, leaving a 5X1 foot hole. This kind of event is rare, but can, and has been, catastrophic when it does occur

2011-05-20
May 20, 2011 (Press-News.org) On Friday, April 1, 2011, a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-300 experienced a rapid decompression when the metal fuselage skin tore apart, leaving a 5X1 foot hole. This kind of event is rare, but can, and has been, catastrophic when it does occur.

In 1988, another Boeing 737, a 200 model, experienced a similar, but much worse, event over Hawaii. In that case, the skin on the entire front section of the aircraft cabin was denuded, leaving the passengers sitting in the first several rows completely exposed, with the aircraft being held together by two metal spars running through the floor.

Everyone, except one flight attendant, was securely strapped in their seats by their seat belts. Consequently, and unfortunately, the flight attendant was ejected from the aircraft and fell to her death from 24,000 feet. Had there been any passengers not belted in at the time, they would have suffered the same fate. Miraculously, the flight crew was able to safely land the aircraft without further mishap.

The cause of this kind of event is metal fatigue. Over the course of the life of an airliner, the metal skin is exposed to thousands of forceful expansions and contractions when the aircraft is pressurized and depressurized with each flight. Additionally, the skin is exposed to extreme temperature variations over short periods of time, as the temperature of the air decreases by 3.5 decrees F. for each 1000 feet of altitude, on average. This further exacerbates the expansion and contraction of the metal skin.

Just as bending a metal paper clip back and forth eventually causes the metal to fatigue, crack and come apart, so did the metal skin of these aircraft upon expanding and contracting thousands of times. In response, the Federal Aviation Administration issued an AD (Airworthiness Directive) 2011-08-51, which mandates inspection of the fuselage skin of certain older Boeing 737s. The inspections require the use of "eddy current" technology, which is designed to detect micro-cracks otherwise invisible to the naked eye, together with instructions to repair any cracks found. Should these cracks not be fixed, they will propagate and eventually compromise the integrity of the metal and eventually fail.

Although a rare event, the gravity of the potential consequences should cause the FAA to step-up these kinds of inspections, making them more frequent and more thorough, instead of waiting for an emergency situation to require such safeguards. Unfortunately, the FAA is notorious for waiting until the horse gets out before closing the barn door.

Article provided by Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman, P.C.
Visit us at www.airplanecrash-lawyer.com


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Of frogs, chickens and people

Of frogs, chickens and people
2011-05-20
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have uncovered new details of an unusual biological mechanism in the brains of diverse species that not only helps regulate how their brains develop, but also how they function later in life. The discovery could lead to new biomarkers for specific neurological diseases in humans and, possibly, the development of drugs to cure them. The research, by Miles F. Wilkinson, PhD, professor of reproductive medicine and a member of the UCSD Institute for Genomic Medicine, and colleagues, is published in ...

Preparing for a Prenuptial Agreement

2011-05-20
Thinking about, let alone preparing for, divorce before you are even married is not what most of us want to do. Whether we believe that divorce will never happen to us or whether we just choose to ignore the possibility, the fact remains that almost half of all marriages in the United States end in divorce. One way to enter into a marriage prepared for all outcomes is to create a prenuptial agreement. Creating this agreement doesn't mean that your marriage will eventually come to an end. Rather, creating a prenuptial agreement is just a way for you and your spouse to ...

Looking deep into a huge storm on Saturn

Looking deep into a huge storm on Saturn
2011-05-20
The atmosphere of the planet Saturn normally appears placid and calm. But about once per Saturn year (about thirty Earth years), as spring comes to the northern hemisphere of the giant planet, something stirs deep below the clouds that leads to a dramatic planet-wide disturbance (eso9014 - http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso9014/). The latest such storm was first detected by the radio and plasma wave science instrument on NASA's Cassini spacecraft [1], in orbit around the planet, and also tracked by amateur astronomers in December 2010. It has now been studied in detail ...

Supreme Court Seems to Give Prosecutors Free Pass to Win at All Costs

2011-05-20
A recent opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court in Connick v. Thompson seems to give prosecutors a free pass to win at all costs. The opinion overlooks a pattern of misconduct by prosecutors in cases against John Thompson, who was almost executed before he was exonerated and set free. Thompson's experience demonstrates the need for capable legal counsel to fight against any prosecutorial misconduct when facing criminal charges. Connick v. Thompson In 1984, John Thompson was convicted of armed robbery in Louisiana. In 1985, Thompson was also tried and found guilty of ...

Unmarried Fathers Have Rights, Too

2011-05-20
If you and your child's mother are not married when the child is born, you may feel like a second-class citizen. You probably think that your rights are completely contingent upon the whims of your child's mother. You may be afraid that you could lose the ability to live with or visit your child. Fortunately, though, Michigan laws recognize that you have rights when it comes to your children. The laws make it possible for you to be legally listed as the child's father, to make a claim for custody or visitation and to have the ability to make decisions about how your child ...

Editing scrambled genes in human stem cells may help realize the promise of stem cell-gene therapy

2011-05-20
LA JOLLA, CA—In principle, genetic engineering is simple, but in practice, replacing a faulty gene with a healthy copy is anything but. Using mutated versions of the lamin A gene as an example to demonstrate the versatility of their virus-based approach, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies successfully edited a diseased gene in patient-specific induced pluripotent stem cells as well as adult stem cells. The study, which will be published in the June 3, 2011 issue of Cell Stem Cell but are already available online, demonstrates that the gene-editing ...

Researchers uncover a new level of genetic diversity in human RNA sequences

2011-05-20
A detailed comparison of DNA and RNA in human cells has uncovered a surprising number of cases where the corresponding sequences are not, as has long been assumed, identical. The RNA-DNA differences generate proteins that do not precisely match the genes that encode them. The finding, published May 19, 2011, in Science Express, suggests that unknown cellular processes are acting on RNA to generate a sequence that is not an exact replica of the DNA from which it is copied. Vivian Cheung, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator who led the study, says the RNA-DNA ...

DNA repair system affects colon cancer recurrence and survival

2011-05-20
Colorectal cancer patients with defects in mismatch repair--one of the body's systems for repairing DNA damage--have lower recurrence rates and better survival rates than patients without such defects, according to a study published online May 19th in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. About 15% of colorectal cancers are associated with mismatch repair defects. Some defects are caused by the inherited gene mutations found in Lynch syndrome and others occur by chance, or "sporadically." But it has never been clear whether mismatch repair defects are linked to ...

Cruise Amour Leads the Way in Website Security

2011-05-20
Cruise Amour has shown its commitment to customer security by being the first UK agency to adopt site-wide security measures. Barely a week goes by without a report that another "big-name" company has had its on-line security compromised or has failed to properly protect its customer's data. Although the travel industry has by chance managed to avoid such pitfalls, Cruise Amour has taken the pro-active step of introducing additional industry leading security measures. Managing director Tim Hurrell, commented on the new security measures: "Let's be clear, ...

Herbal remedies offer hope as the new antibiotics

2011-05-20
Cancer treatments often have the side effect of impairing the patient's immune system. This can result in life-threatening secondary infections from bacteria and fungi, especially since bacteria, like Staphylococcus aureus, are becoming multi-drug resistant (MRSA). New research published by BioMed Central's open access journal Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials investigates the potency of Indian wild plants against bacterial and fungal infections in the mouths of oral cancer patients. Researchers from Rohtak, India, tested extracts from several plants ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Study finds one-year change on CT scans linked to future outcomes in fibrotic lung disease

Discovery of a novel intracellular trafficking pathway in plant cells

New tool helps forecast volcano slope collapses and tsunamis

Molecular coating cleans up noisy quantum light

From Parkinson's to rare diseases, discovered a key switch for cellular health

Tiny sugars in the brain disrupt emotional circuits, fueling depression

Mini-organs reveal how the cervix defends itself

Africa, climate, and food: How to feed a continent without increasing its carbon footprint

Researchers demonstrates substrate design principles for scalable superconducting quantum materials

How better software choices could cut US health care costs

Concussion history in NCAA athletes yields mixed health outcomes

Counting plastic reveals hidden waste and sparks action

Warming oceans may pose a serious threat to American lobsters

Deaths from drug-induced unintentional injury rise across the US

In car crashes with pedestrians, age and zip code may predict extent of traumatic injuries

AI optimizes evacuation, diagnosis, and treatment of wounded soldiers in Ukraine

Mastectomy linked to worsened sexual health, body image after surgery

Drop in credit score after cancer diagnosis linked to increased mortality, study shows

Use of weight loss drugs before bariatric surgery has soared in recent years, study finds

EMS call times in rural areas take at least 20 minutes longer than national average

Rectal bleeding in young adults linked to 8.5 times higher risk of colorectal cancer

Hospital closures disproportionately affect socioeconomically disadvantaged communities

Global disparities in premature mortality

Keck Medicine of USC expands world-class care in Pasadena

Untreated depression makes surgical outcomes worse in cancer patients

Standardizing frailty indexes to improve preclinical aging research

Hanbat National University researchers present new technique to boost solid oxide fuel cell performance

Even short school breaks affect student learning unevenly across socioeconomic backgrounds

When words matter: Language and culture shape early childhood outcomes

UBC enzyme technology clears first human test toward universal donor organs for transplantation

[Press-News.org] What Causes the Metal Skin on an Airliner to Tear Apart?
On Friday, April 1, 2011, a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-300 experienced a rapid decompression when the metal fuselage skin tore apart, leaving a 5X1 foot hole. This kind of event is rare, but can, and has been, catastrophic when it does occur