Jun 5 2011
Southwest Airlines Grounds Flights After Plane Loses Part Of Fuselage
Southwest Airlines, the airline noted for keeping fares more affordable than major airlines, has started canceling a large number of aircrafts. Troubles with the aircraft that are not always simple to find brought on a gap to open in the fuselage of a Southwest Airlines airplane just after takeoff on April 1. Luckily, no one was seriously hurt. The airline is grounding hundreds of airplanes and carrying out inspections.
Landing for emergency means inspections galore
A five by one foot hole was ripped in a Southwest Airlines plane on Flight 812 near the cockpit on Friday, April 1, reports USA Today. This was a flight going from Phoenix to Sacramento. Nobody was hurt in this flight that made an emergency landing near Yuma, AZ at a military base. Stress fractures in the aluminum “skin” of the airplane were where the tear occurred, which the aircraft got from normal wear and tear. The National Transportation Safety Board explained that in March 2010 the airplane had been inspected. Southwest said this kind of thing is very rare, reports Reuters.
Hundreds of flights grounded
Southwest grounded 600 flights in the 2 days following the incident and is expected to ground up to 100 more aircrafts on Monday, April 4. Model aircrafts like this were inspected by the airline. This was to see if there were comparable cracks in any of them. There are 171 Boeing 737-300 planes that Southwest owns like the one in the incident. At least 79 of the Boeing 737 variants are being inspected. Southwest is really worried about safety. Of all time, the 737 has sold the best. It is very popular, Bloomberg explains. More takeoffs and landings are required for Southwest planes due to the short flights which can be more stressful on a plane. It is really hard for an inspector to discover the cracks that brought on the Flight 812 hole. This is because they are only about a quarter of an inch long.
Airplane maintenance causes increase in travel costs
Once a year, planes have an in depth inspection while being regularly inspected. There is a concern the Federal Aviation Administration has though. They want an expiration date to be enforced. The mechanical and structural stress of take-offs and landings for years on end add up, but replacing a $30 million aircraft is a hefty undertaking. Regular airplane purchase could really hurt airlines. It might become even more costly to buy airplane tickets.
Information from
USA Today
usatoday.com/money/industries/travel/2011-04-03-Southwest-jet_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip
Reuters
reuters.com/article/2011/04/04/airlines-southwest-idUSN0320240220110404
Bloomberg
bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-03/southwest-737-jet-showed-previous-cracking-near-tear-ntsb-says.html
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