How come?
ok, I get it, Southwest had to make an emergancy landingin Yuma AZ. A plane with a sun roof is not a good thing. Everyone lands safe, and flight crew, does everything right! Yet southwest pulls something like 80 planes out of service for inspection. The news media keeps going on about it.
It's gone from a 3 to a 4 to now a 5 foot hole (guessing no one knows how to use a tape measure? )
While I may not be the biggest fan of southwest airlines, this seems to need a rest.
Also, while southwest did pull planes and delay or cancel many flights in the name of saftey. Surely they are not the only airline flying these 737's. I didn't here Delta or United checking for cracks in theirs?
Things that make ya go Hmmmm?

I understand your rant Lee. A very major event took place and everyone is hungry for answers. First of all, remember what I've said several times before. Any major story on mainstream media and most minor stories are not very accurate. The reporters walk into a story blind and create a story with enough sensationalism to put a feather in their cap. If your profession is nuclear energy, you know that most of the reporting from Japan is BS. If you are in military intelligence, you know that most of what you read about the unrest in the middle east if BS. The first line or two of the story might be true. The rest is filler. Katie Couric doesn't know squat, except how to read and how to be rich.

Now getting down to the real story. Yes, the plane unzipped…big time. The crew did a great job, and everyone is okay. Southwest flew a spare plane with representatives from all front line departments to start taking care of business. This included mechanics, inspectors, and engineers. They also chartered a plane to get Boeing reps to the scene ASAP. Maintenance did an initial evaluation and made a best guess as to what had happened. If this initial evaluation was correct, there would be other planes with that same structural design that might be suspect, so several other planes were grounded. Airplane design is constantly being updated through the production cycle, so grounding the whole fleet would be akin to recalling all Ford Mustangs if a 2010 Mustang had a fuel filter problem, A 2010 Mustang is different from a 1967 model, and it's different from a 1982 model, etc…. Anyway, Southwest took a proactive response long before the NTSB, FAA, or even Boeing made any decisions.

The reason the other carriers did not respond is that they had nothing to go on. I strongly suspect that all interested carriers are being kept updated. Still, it's just the few employees that looked at it with no hard proof. And who's to say it is unique to 737s? Many Boeing parts and processes are used on different types within the Boeing family.

So after the planes were grounded, Southwest started looking for defects. Before the ink was dry on the initial plan to inspect the grounded planes, further inspections on the broke jet suggested different criteria to inspect by. It is a very fluid situation and the inspection is probably being revised again as we speak. This is with the knowing that the NTSB will initiate another inspection, Boeing will issue a Service Bulletin with their own type of inspection criteria, and the FAA will issue an Airworthiness Directive…all at later dates. When the facts start rolling in, I'm sure the other carriers will respond. Hopefully, Southwest will already be in compliance when the new criteria is set. The NTSB might determine that all 737s need looked at because they don't think the failure had anything to do with any design changes. Boeing may determine different inspection criteria.

So how long was the tear? Who cares if it was 4 or 5 or 6 feet? It is what it is, and that's BIG. At some point, the people that actually know will have enough free time to tell people who want to know. Right now, they are very very busy and have other fish to fry.

I heard a RUMOR that Southwest found a few planes with cracks in that area that were not visible to the eye. They were found with eddy current or X-ray or ultrasound inspection or something like that. I'm sure if this is true, the Feds and Boeing will want to look at those airplanes too. And if it's true, I don't know if they were part of the previously grounded fleet or planes that were already undergoing maintenance. Regardless, it takes time for an official federal response and even longer for a final inspection plan.

So yes Lee, the facts are out and it needs a rest. True facts will be slow and ongoing for a very long time.

Look for the FAA to issue an Emergency Airworthiness Directive on Tuesday morning. It will address approx 175 aircraft worldwide, including the ones Southwest has specified.

Since Southwest is working with the FAA and Boeing on the inspection, the Emergency AD pretty much covers what Southwest has already done.

Again, once the dust settles, the FAA will probably issue a more specific AD that will supersede prior requirements.

Thanks Joe. It kinda mad me mad that it seemed as though the media was signaling out southwest, just because there plane unzipped, when in fact, it would be logical for this to be a problem for other carriers as well. Southwest was just the unlucky one for it to happen to.
Seemed a shame, to beat up the airline, when they did everything right and correct!

I worked on Saturday and Sunday and I didn't get to see any television news. I'm sure it was brutal. Everybody has their day in the barrel so it's no big deal.

I think that because Southwest reacted to the situation faster than the media reported, it will smooth over well. It was also fortunate for all that Southwest had all of it's bases covered. The crew did everything right, the passengers were okay, the paperwork was in order, the correct series of planes were grounded, the flight schedule was handled as well as could be expected, so therefore, the system worked.

If Southwest would have tried to keep it quiet and let the media pressure them into reacting, it would have been more of a beat down.

Moving forward, I'm curious how Boeing will react in accepting at least part of the blame. Southwest is a major customer of Boeing, and has been pressuring them to address aging aircraft issues.

Also of note, the 737-300 model is not made anymore. It was replaced by the 737-700 model about 10 years ago. It is interesting that the planes affected by this event were the newest versions of the -300. It seems there was a flaw in the upper skin of the older -300s that was effectively eliminated in the latest design of the -300 series. I guess that design has it's own flaw. That design change was also in some -500 models but Southwest does not have any -500s with that design change.

Funny, the NTSB issues an official report based on facts and the media doesn't care. This is only a preliminary investigation and is a press release available on the NTSB website. Here are some points I got out of it.

The damage was 59 inches long and the width was about 9 inches.
It happened at a lap joint, where sections of skin overlap.
A section of of the area 116 inches by 19 inches was cut out of plane for inspection.
The metal used on the skin matched the design specifications.
The rivet line separation included 58 rivets.
At least 42 of those rivet holes in the skin had fatigue cracks detected by visual examination.
9 fatigue cracks were found in the skin forward of the torn section using electronic detectors.

The NTSB to do list includes

Removal of rivets, checks of rivet dimension, rivet hole dimension, rivet hole alignment with other pieces.
Electronic and optical examination of rivet holes.
Fatigue analysis of the skin.
Examination of other parts of the aircraft along the same line, forward and aft and on the along the same area on the right side.

Boeing issued a Service Bulletin, and the FAA issued an emergency Airwrothiness Directive that references the Boeing SB. 4 aircraft were found to have a crack at a single fastener and one aircraft had cracks at two fasteners. Those aircraft are undergoing a similar investigation.

The full press release and a picture of the damaged area are on the NTSB website.