Case Study Of De Haviland Comet Plane Crashes

had survived.” This second quote explains the solution to the plane’s crash, which required the

The plane then reportedly filled with thick smoke with flames shooting from the rear of the plane. The passengers struggled to get though either the emergency exits or through holes in fuselage that were torn open due to the crash. The rescue effort was also slowed due to power outages on the field. The bay doors for the rescue vehicles needed to be open manually slowing the rescue crews from getting to the plane. Overall a total of 11 people died including Captain Richard W. Bushmann, a 20-year veteran with American Airlines. 83 of the 143 passengers were injured.

Just moments after being given instructions to climb to a higher altitude “the captain stated, ‘Look at that crazy fuel flow indicator their on number four, see that?’” (TWA flight crash). Afterwards, in an investigation lead by the Nation Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) they concluded that the cause of the crash was due to the combustion of the mixture of air and fuel in the “center wing fuel tank” (TWA flight crash). It is no wonder why many people believe the cause of the crash was a fuel tank explosion. Later, the NTSB claimed that two worn down wires must have sparked in the fuel tank, exploding the whole plane (Cole 36). The NTSB also that the flammability in the central wing fuel tank, due to the hazardous mixture of air and fuel, was too high (TWA Flight 800). Based on the various tests and investigations of the crash, mechanical failure has remained one of the most accepted theories of the flight’s

One contributing factor was metal fatigue, this occurs when “metal parts that undergo many repeated strains eventually fail at a loading far below their original ultimate strength”, Garrison (2005) (p. 1). Manufacturers at the time primarily used aluminum and steel, because of their overall strength and how readily they were available. What engineers did not consider was the abuse the airframes would take over time. This factor went overlooked, resulting in numerous crashes with fatalities.

The Columbia mission, STS-107, was interesting because the public was more aware of the risk that was being taken upon re-entry. During the launch a piece of insulating foam broke away from the external tank surface, striking the left wing. In previous missions there had been evidence of this occurring which to engineers was seen as minor. In the case of the Columbia craft failure, it was more serious because the damaged section of the wing was damaged to the extent of which it allowed hot atmospheric gases to penetrate the structure of the wing, pulling it apart, rendering the craft unstable.

Crashes are rare, and most of the time are consequences of many unrelated factors. Many believe that airplane crashes are the cause of bad piloting or harsh weather; but other factors are overlooked. Suren Ratwatte have been studying airplane

According to NIST (National Institute for Standard Technology) the planes may have crashed, but the cause of the collapses were emerging fires-that sprung from jet fuel and flying debris. This supports the theory that exposed steel allowed fires to spring off and burn buildings until they collapsed.

The most controversial flight in the 9/11 conspiracy, rivaled only by the disappearance of Flight 77, is the damage done to the pentagon. The first mystery surrounding this event was the impossibility of a Boeing

The SHELL Model has proven to be an useful tool when it comes to using the human factors and aviation safety. On this case study, we will use the details from the NTSB report from the American Airlines Flight 1420 NTSB to study all the factors of the SHELL Model that were contributed to the accident.

Accident investigators found that a replacement windscreen had been installed 27 hours before the flight, and that the procedure had been approved by the Shift Maintenance Manager. “84 of the 90 windscreen retention bolts were 0.026 inches too small in diameter, while the remaining six were 0.1 inches too short” ("British airways flight 5390," ). The investigation revealed that the previous windscreen had been fitted with incorrect bolts, which had been replaced on a "like for like" basis by the Shift Maintenance Manager without reference to the maintenance documentation. The air pressure difference between the cabin and the outside during the flight proved to be too much, leading to the failure of the windscreen. The incident also brought to attention a design flaw in the aircraft of the windscreen being secured from the outside of the aircraft, putting a greater stress on the bolts than if they were secured from the inside.

This crash is considered to be the second deadliest aviation accident at the time in the US.

On 1st of February, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia exploded when it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere after finished a 16 days mission in space. All seven astronauts were dead because of this incident. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had stopped the space shuttle program for more than two years to investigate this tragedy. In the 16 days period, the astronauts did approximately 80 experiments on different categories, for example, life science and material science [1]. An investigation later has found out that the disaster was caused by a problem on the day that took off on 16th of January.

Flight 1420 was a disaster that taught the aviation community several important lessons. All the Seven Major Elements of Aviation safety can be seen as contributing factors but the greatest factor was human error and the impact of pilot fatigue. With proper preventative measures, the pilots probably would have had the time to arm the MD-82’s spoiler system and the flight would have touched down safely.

The cockpit and passenger areas were destroyed. All of the instruments were destroyed as well. The throttle quadrant was damaged, but it did show that all the levers, props, throttle, mixture and feathering levers were pushed forward into the panel. Initial cable tracing showed remaining integrity, but due to damage from the impact and the resulting fire, actuator positions were inclusive. There were large metal trunks scattered throughout the

There are several events that contributed to this incidents occurring. Some of them are related in the form of chain events for instance the second event occur because of the effect from the first event and the third event occur because of the effect from second event and so on until the incident occur. By using SHELL Model, base on the Aircraft Accident Report 3/96 which was provided and presented by Air Accidents Investigation Branch, Department of Transport, under the report title of “Report on the Incident to Boeing 737-400, G-OBMM near Davontry on 23 February 1995, the analysis of the contribution events to the incident can be reveal and the appropriate recommendations from competence authority was been made to ensure the same incident will not occur in the future.