Pilot 'Half Sucked out of Plane'

[Nigel H-J]

Very lucky escape!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-44121377

Regards
Nigel.

[FlyTexas]

Yikes! Glad he's ok. Sounds like the BA flight #5390 incident.

Brian

[Airspeed]

Fortunate indeed, I see that his seat belt held him.
We might pass it off as bad engineering if it was a Communist build, but an Airbus?

[Vancouver]

Communist maintenance though.

[FlyTexas]

Communist maintenance though.

When one of our windscreens needs replacing Boeing comes out to do the work. Our mechanics don't touch 'em.

Brian

[TobyV]

The BA one was I believe caused by the engineer 'matching' the retaining screws with an incorrect one that had previously been installed on the aircraft and overruling the storesman who told him the correct size for the bolts for the 1-11 windshield. With the wrong culture/attitudes or processes, I imagine a maintenance mistake could easily reoccur.

Many of the 1-11 crashes in Africa or Tu-154 in the CIS-sphere that led to grounding of those types were usually human error on the part of either the maintenance or pilot and not intrinsic design faults in those aircraft.

[Airspeed]

Thanks for that, Toby.
Now I feel more confident about placing an order.

[Dev One]

The BA one was I believe caused by the engineer 'matching' the retaining screws with an incorrect one that had previously been installed on the aircraft and overruling the storesman who told him the correct size for the bolts for the 1-11 windshield. With the wrong culture/attitudes or processes, I imagine a maintenance mistake could easily reoccur.

Many of the 1-11 crashes in Africa or Tu-154 in the CIS-sphere that led to grounding of those types were usually human error on the part of either the maintenance or pilot and not intrinsic design faults in those aircraft.

I must admit that I was surprised that the 1-11 used 8 unc bolts at all in the design, when I was working at Weybridge on the VC10 & TSR2 they were banned because a 8 unc bolt will fit in a 10 unf nut without an operator realising it, so all fasteners were upsized if necessary to 10 unf.

[Airspeed]

Now, that's interesting.
All these years of aviation engineering have certainly led to reduction of errors.
Remember that Avro had to alter aileron control fittings after their designer made it possible to fit left to right and vice versa. Unfortunately, that cost him his life, plus others and the aircraft.