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Boeing jet loses parts of the wing in flight!

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SeanB:
Can attest to the fighter thing. He almost made the runway, only deciding that it was time to eject when he looked up, and, despite being at the best glide angle of 35 degrees nose up, the scrub trees were visible above the front of the aircraft. Then put his trust in messrs Martin and Baker, and pulled his legs in, and kissed his ass goodbye. He felt, due to the way the ejection system has a half second delay to allow the canopy clearing charges to operate, the aircraft impact the dry river bed he was in, before he left. 200m from the runway threshold, but there was a small rise, and a rather impressive wall, before he would have landed. Nobody believed he could have gotten 12km from the point that the vulture got ingested, especially as at that time he was doing an air show.

tom66:

--- Quote from: hans on February 23, 2024, 02:21:03 pm ---Even with centerline thrust.. if you lose 1 wing, the engine is still outbound on either side of your plane. The center of gravity and lift will shift, but the center of thrust won't. So it will require some big corrections to keep it flying at all.

However, having engines on the rudder and wing does allow more options for balancing this offset. So I agree losing a wing on a 727 is probably safer than on e.g. a 737, but it still sounds unsafe :-/O In particular, if the complete wing falls off... so does the main landing gear on that side. But I guess nothing is left to set fire to (e.g. the fuel in the tanks) during the inevitable crash-type landing, so thats a plus in all cases.

--- End quote ---

I think the reality is if you do manage to lose an entire wing structure you probably lost most if not all of your hydraulic systems and electrical systems are badly damaged.  Assuming the fuselage doesn't immediately tear itself apart from the aerodynamic forces, you are really going to struggle to control the plane.  It is catastrophic.  It only took the blown bulkhead on a 747 to down JAL123, as all hydraulic systems were lost once the damage occurred to the vertical stabiliser/bulkhead.

I couldn't find a diagram for a 737, but it looks like in e.g. an A320 all three hydraulic systems pass through each of the wing structures so it would quickly render the plane uncontrollable... The redundancies are built for the assumption of something like an uncontained engine failure knocking out one or perhaps two hydraulic systems, not the aerodynamic failure of the wing.

https://scontent.flhr3-4.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/66368584_392278834735550_949041885261856768_n.jpg?_nc_cat=102&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=jrqkKpHPrcAAX8uLq7r&_nc_ht=scontent.flhr3-4.fna&oh=00_AfAKdFCaT7pZcdCfRVimffW3H4sD7WaPjIp5aMWm2OvDpg&oe=66111F96

tggzzz:

--- Quote from: tom66 on March 07, 2024, 11:40:26 am ---I think the reality is if you do manage to lose an entire wing structure you probably lost most if not all of your hydraulic systems and electrical systems are badly damaged.  Assuming the fuselage doesn't immediately tear itself apart from the aerodynamic forces, you are really going to struggle to control the plane.  It is catastrophic.  It only took the blown bulkhead on a 747 to down JAL123, as all hydraulic systems were lost once the damage occurred to the vertical stabiliser/bulkhead.

--- End quote ---

Lest we forget... UA232, which lost all hydraulic power so the only operating flying controls were the wing engines' thrust. Amazingly, the pilots kept it in the air for 40 minutes and managed to hit an airfield.

I first saw this transcript on usenet in '91, and occasionally re-read it.

Forget the movie starring James Coburn, since that focussed on the airport ground staff (and is mildly interesting and useful). Al Haynes' description of what happened on board and afterwards is far more interesting - and viscerally gripping.

NASA Ames Research Center, Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, California
                             presents
                           The Crash of
                        United Flight 232
                               by
                         Capt. Al Haynes
                           May 24, 1991
https://www.iamcraig.com/files/2010/11/al_haynes_united_232.txt

tom66:
And of course, this...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Baghdad_DHL_attempted_shootdown_incident

Total loss of hydraulic control, aircraft landed more or less intact with a hole in the wing (they went off the edge of the runway due to a slight loss of control at the end, but it's close enough!)

But, that said, I suspect if you combined hydraulic loss with a significant change to the aircraft's handling/aerodynamics, it's a goner, no matter how skilled your pilots are. Especially because any wing structure failure is likely to lead to loss of an engine or at least the control of that engine.

MT:
At the time there was videos on both of them incidents.

DHL the shoot and hit and flyover with wing on fire, landing video YT buried somewhere.


UA232 was unlucky due to a slight sudden side wind they say else they likely would have settled down fine.

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