Word: reared
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...only hint of a potential cause of the trouble came at 6:33 p.m., and it turned out to be misleading. "R5 broken," a crewman reported by radio. "Cabin-pressure drop." The reference was to the right rear door of the plane through which food and supplies are normally brought into the cabin. The door had not been opened at Haneda before takeoff...
...tail break away in the air? That mystery was being probed by investigators from the Japanese Ministry of Transport as well as an advisory team from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and a group of experts from the Boeing Co. in Seattle. Initial speculation that the rear cabin door, mentioned by the crew over the radio, may have broken loose and struck the tail above it was abandoned when the door was found amid the wreckage on Mount Osutaka, still firmly attached to a part of the fuselage...
...week went on, the experts' suspicions were also directed at the aircraft's rear bulkhead, an aluminum-alloy partition that separates the pressurized cabin from the non pressurized tail assembly. Hiroshi Fujiwara, deputy investigator for the Ministry of Transport, said that the bulkhead was found at the crash site and that it had been "peeled like a tangerine." It was possible, he said, that if the partition had cracked in flight, the air rushing from the cabin could have had enough force to dislodge the hollow tail fin. American experts theorized that the large number of takeoffs and landings, each...
...part of the history of JA8119 (the plane's serial number) particularly attracted the probers' attention. On June 2, 1978, the aircraft approached a landing at Osaka with its nose too high. The tail and the rear part of the fuselage slammed into the tarmac at 320 m.p.h.; the impact ripped aluminum skin panels from the belly of the plane. JA8119 was grounded for a month while Boeing engineers supervised repairs that included replacement of the lower part of the rear fuselage...
Shortly afterward, Boeing sent a worldwide advisory from Seattle suggesting that all carriers using 747s "may wish" to follow the Japanese example by visually inspecting the tail fin and rudder structures on these planes. The company also suggested an inspection of the rear bulkhead. A spokesman for the U.S. Air Transport Association said that "everybody will follow those recommendations to a T." The procedure, which should take about two hours, can be done between flights and during refueling stops...