Word: tails
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...tail assembly and the repairs were examined visually after the work was done, according to Hiroaki Kohno, general manager of JAL's maintenance planning department. There was no need for X-ray examination, he said, because "we had full access to the damaged area from the underside." Could some damage have been overlooked at that time? "That cannot be completely ruled out," Kohno conceded, "although that probability would be very...
...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...
...crash. William Tench, recently retired chief inspector of accidents at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough, said he knew of cases in which it took three years before a crack became visible after an aircraft was heavily jolted. Japan's Ministry of Transport promptly ordered that the tail areas of all 747s registered in that country be re-examined, with special attention to the link holding the fin to the 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...