Japan Airlines Crash

[Paul Adsett]

The JAL crash is the first crash of an airliner with an all composite fuselage, The fire was so intense that it took 6 hours to extinguish using 8 fire trucks, and the plane was totally destroyed. Exactly what experts were predicting years ago when Airbus and Boeing were designing these type of planes. The glue used to bond the carbon fibers is almost impossible to extinguish once ignited. and it burns at a very high temperature with thick acrid smoke, Essenially the fuselage just melts away. If this fire had occurred in flight no one would have stood a chance. whereas a plane with a traditional aluminum fuselage might well be able to make an emergency landing.

see this article:

https://leehamnews.com/2024/01/02/ja...site-airplane/

[Mike Newell]

Unfortunately, the path of aviation design is a learning curve of crashes and disasters. Metal fatigue square windows in Comet planes that popped out mid flight after awhile.

That said aviation is safer than automobiles. Roll on 2026 when we get driverless cars on the road.

[Osi Osgood]

They're already out there! Just wait until hackers figure out a way to hack these driverless vehicles, as well as all of these modern cars with massive computer systems. Hey, as any hacker will tell you, there is no computer, built by man, or another computer, that cannot eventually be hacked.

[Steve Klare]

A friend just bought a Tesla: it kind of surprising, but then I remembered him years ago saying he hated driving and couldn't wait for self-driving cars!

-it was a bold marital move: he didn't tell his wife first! (Let's hope he doesn't end up living in it!)

[Graham Ritchie]

Thank goodness everyone got of that aircraft safely. Somethings stick in your mind, and I do remember working in the cockpit of a BA146 Whisper jet as they were known way back around 1998-2000. I had to lower the overhead instrument panel to carry out inspections behind it. That overhead panel was very heavy and as such found the rear securing brackets were cracked and as such were replaced. As I was in that area, I noticed what I thought looked like a bare copper conductor. I had never seen this kind of wiring before. I got avionics to have a look, they told me it was the outside shielding of the actual conductor, not the conductor itself. I thought it seemed strange but they said its fine no problem.

I was told the wiring was called Kapton and had been fitted to a number of aircraft the likes of the Boeing 767 and the 747. Soon after and I can't put a time on it a Swissair crashed killing all on board. They had a wiring fire on board that led very quickly to the disaster. Kapton wiring was the suspect. The thing is, if the outer shielding, not the conductor heats up enough it can catch fire. In a wiring loom it will just spread to other wires, the head generated is huge, and once gets going it will just spread you wont be able to stop it, that's what happened to the Swissair aircraft.

I do remember with the whisper jet, that pilots were told, if you have a circuit breaker that pops "do not" reset it, you can guess why. I am not sure if Kapton wiring is still used, it gave me the jitters to think that it was responsible for a fire that brought down a modern wide bodied aircraft around that time.

Came across this video, it tells it all.

[Ed Gordon]

The JAL crash is the first crash of an airliner with an all composite fuselage, The fire was so intense that it took 6 hours to extinguish using 8 fire trucks, and the plane was totally destroyed. Exactly what experts were predicting years ago when Airbus and Boeing were designing these type of planes. The glue used to bond the carbon fibers is almost impossible to extinguish once ignited. and it burns at a very high temperature with thick acrid smoke, Essenially the fuselage just melts away. If this fire had occurred in flight no one would have stood a chance. whereas a plane with a traditional aluminum fuselage might well be able to make an emergency landing.

Paul, your description of the fire's characteristics sounds very much like how nitrate film burns. It gives one second thoughts about getting on one of these planes.

Graham's description of Kapton wiring adds to the dread.

We don't know how many "close calls" we may have avoided. I remember the Alaska Airlines Flight 261 in back in 2000:

The subsequent investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that inadequate maintenance led to excessive wear and eventual failure of a critical flight control system during flight. The probable cause was stated to be "a loss of airplane pitch control resulting from the in-flight failure of the horizontal stabilizer trim system jackscrew assembly's Acme nut threads." For their efforts to save the plane, both pilots were posthumously awarded the Air Line Pilots Association Gold Medal for Heroism. The accident served as an inspiration for the fictionalized crash landing depicted in the 2012 movie Flight starring Denzel Washington.

I was on that same route and plane model the month before.

[Mike Newell]

Bob Newhart had it summarised years ago with Grace L Ferguson airline sketch

https://youtu.be/DR5auN1QSp0?si=1Uw8dgBnh7VBE4hz

[Paul Adsett]

That was great Mike, thanks for posting, I laughed my head off! Bob Newhart was hilarious on radio.

Ed, that was a close call you had. Unfortunately it only takes one critical component to fail for a plane to come down. Amazing really that commercial aviation is so safe.

[Mike Newell]

That was great Mike, thanks for posting, I laughed my head off! Bob Newhart was hilarious on radio.

Ed, that was a close call you had. Unfortunately it only takes one critical component to fail for a plane to come down. Amazing really that commercial aviation is so safe.

Innocent days before Ryanair made it a reality.

Remember travelling in one of the box with wings planes to Blackpool convention stopping on the Isle of Man to pick up a passenger and drop off and pick up freight. Tea and shortbread was dispensed to all from an oversized flask.

Still think we landed in a car park at Blackpool.

[Graham Ritchie]

Another memory trip back and that was not the 146 but the 748 where the night shift had fitted the galley etc. I came in the morning turned on the galley power as they said it was finished, shortly after smelt smoke coming from under the floor, called out to the cockpit to kill the power. The night shift had wired it up wrong, and as such a single wire had shorted out along underneath the floor area. I got the avionics folk to check things out. It was just one wire but what a stink from the molten mess. I asked them why did the CB not trip? and if I remember right, the answer was there were more than one wire to that CB therefore its rated higher. Now if you imagine that single wire although shorted out, it was still not drawing enough current to trip it due to the higher CB rating for all the other stuff that was also connected to it.

So there you have it, you can have a single wire happily burning away underneath a floor area without enough amps going through it to trip the Circuit Breaker, makes you think doesn't it. About the time I was working on aircraft, airlines were still operating a lot of old aircraft, they were not replacing them with new ones that quick. Some of the 747s I saw on tarmac looked tired. It did make me think at time I hope there maintenance is up to scratch.

Remember the TWA 747 that blew up in flight due to faulty wiring shorting out in the centre tank, the United airlines 747 that wire shorted out causing the motor to run causing the freight door to open in flight over the Pacific with terrible results.

For all that I still feel flying is really safe, there is more chance of getting killed on the road driving your car to the airport than in the air.

[Mike Newell]

Air travel is definitely much safer than automobiles. The only human element is the take off and landing most of the rest of the journey is undertaken by IT.

Remember when Robert Mc Namara became chief executive of Ford in the late 1950s before joining JFK cabinet and he couldn’t believe that most cars were death traps and car companies didn’t care. 250,000 deaths a year in US alone. Wasn’t it the Pinto that was produced with a fault that it instantly combusted into a fireball if involved in a rear collision. It wasn’t until the deaths built up that Ford withdrew it. Peugeots in the 90s were the same. Strong front and back but side collision pancaked the car into the occupants.

[Paul Adsett]

Yes car safety has come a long way since the Ford Pinto and Corvair fiasco's. American cars up to the 1970's had no seat belts, no head rests, no collapsible steering columns (they were fitted with solid rod steering columns that would impail you in the chest or neck in the event of a severe front end crash). So car safety has improved immensely, unfortunately largely offset by the increased numbers of numbskull drivers on the roads.

[Graham Ritchie]

I am starting to think after looking at the news items that although the aircraft was totally destroyed by fire, even though the fire service was right there and unable to stop or looks like to even slow the fire down, those factors I am sure will be looked at as to tackle such a fire, and what changes in what they use in future.

One thing I think with composite fuselage when watching the news, was its strength to hold the aircraft together on impact and not break up. If that's the case that's a big plus for composite, however in a fire, well that's, a different story. It will be interesting to hear the results of the investigation.

[Ed Gordon]

...One thing I think with composite fuselage when watching the news, was its strength to hold the aircraft together on impact and not break up. If that's the case that's a big plus for composite, however in a fire, well that's, a different story. It will be interesting to hear the results of the investigation.

I gather from what I have read that composite is very strong, but does not show evidence of long term repeated stress. That is, it is fine until it is not, and when it is not, it fails catastrophically.

James Cameron, the director of the Titanic movie and an experienced deep-sea explorer, identified a plausible cause for the submersible’s demise as a failure within the composite hull. He speculated, “Was it the primary failure or a secondary outcome of other events? I’m inclined to attribute it to the composite, as composites aren’t typical for vessels subjected to external pressure.”

Source: https://www.eit.edu.au/titan-submers...its-implosion/

As Paul noted in his post:

The JAL crash is the first crash of an airliner with an all composite fuselage, The fire was so intense that it took 6 hours to extinguish using 8 fire trucks, and the plane was totally destroyed. Exactly what experts were predicting years ago when Airbus and Boeing were designing these type of planes. The glue used to bond the carbon fibers is almost impossible to extinguish once ignited. and it burns at a very high temperature with thick acrid smoke, Essenially the fuselage just melts away. If this fire had occurred in flight no one would have stood a chance. whereas a plane with a traditional aluminum fuselage might well be able to make an emergency landing.

If composite materials are like Nitrate Film, and can burn (even if submerged in water), they should not be used to make planes.

[Brian Fretwell]

This is beginning to sound simialr to the imploded vessel going down to the Titanic. That was glued carbonb fibre!!