Rivet holes did not line up properly on the Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 which developed a hole in flight, according to the National Transportation Board.
In response to the NTB report, Boeing said:
“Boeing already has taken appropriate action by recommending lap-joint inspections to airlines worldwide on certain 737-300/400/500 airplanes, which the FAA also mandated as an airworthiness directive. To date, Boeing has confirmed that inspections are complete worldwide on nearly 80 percent of the 190 airplanes affected.”
Inspection procedures were underway on Southwest Airlines’ Boeing 737 fleet after a 5-foot crack was found in the top of an aircraft April 1, causing pilots to make an emergency landing. The incident brought about hundreds of cancelled flights for one of the largest airlines following the event.
In a press release, Mike Van de Ven, executive vice president and chief operating officer for Southwest Airlines said “prior to the event regarding Flight 812, we were in compliance with the FAA-mandated and Boeing-recommended structural inspection requirements for that aircraft. What we saw with Flight 812 was a new and unknown issue. We regret any customer inconveniences as a result of the inspections currently underway. Delays and cancelations are never the preference, however we are taking every precaution we can to ensure that our operation is safe.”
The Federal Aviation Administration issued an emergency safety order to examine the current state of early Boeing 737 models for damage that had similar takeoff and landing cycles.
“The FAA has comprehensive programs in place to protect commercial aircraft from structural damage as they age,” said Randy Babbitt, FAA administrator, in a press release.
“This action is designed to detect cracking in a specific part of the aircraft that cannot be spotted with visual inspection,” Babbitt said.
A Boeing 737-300 model lost pressure in the cabin, shortly after takeoff, on a flight originally scheduled to land at Sacramento. Instead, an emergency landing was made from about 36,000 feet from the air where pilots touched down at an Arizona military base. There were 118 passengers on board, none of whom were seriously hurt; however a flight attendant suffered a minor injury due to the occurrence.
Since the incident, inspections have discovered four 737 jets were found with similar subsurface cracks at one rivet. Furthermore, one airplane had crack indications at two rivets.
