Swift 737 lands missing tail pieces

thepotato232 said:
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So riddle me this...

When a forward, upper cowling departs a lowly King Air in flight, it goes up and straight back. It has a good chance of striking the horizontal stabilizer. Straight back.

So how does a part from an aircraft traveling faster detach and touch the horizontal stab waaay out there to the side?
 
Roger Roger said:
Day shift: so we got the right side fasteners in on the vert stab closeout fairing but ran into some busted nutplates on the left and none of those are in
Mids (in the middle of eating a cheeseburger and checking Facebook): he said the stab fairing was good to go right?
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I know some folks who missed a bird-strike dent on the chrome leading edge (6-8” wide, 1/4” deep) for 3 days (3 preflights). Luckily, the plane didn’t get any trips those days.
 
deadstick said:
I know some folks who missed a bird-strike dent on the chrome leading edge (6-8” wide, 1/4” deep) for 3 days (3 preflights). Luckily, the plane didn’t get any trips those days.
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I would laugh, but after working Medevac for 2.5 years I can pretty easily see how it can be easy to get complacent with a preflight inspection.
 
Roger Roger said:
Day shift: so we got the right side fasteners in on the vert stab closeout fairing but ran into some busted nutplates on the left and none of those are in
Mids (in the middle of eating a cheeseburger and checking Facebook): he said the stab fairing was good to go right?
Click to expand...

You laugh. This happened in a very high profile accident. Similar with the shift change, just different details. Eerily similar
 
MikeD said:
You laugh. This happened in a very high profile accident. Similar with the shift change, just different details. Eerily similar
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Oh, I worked and managed maintenance long enough to know how that goes. Not at ALL out of the question.
 
Crockrocket94 said:
Yeah I highly doubt someone is gonna miss most of the tail missing on a preflight or post flight. Or a flight,
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I don’t think ground/local control would miss it either. My guess, after looking at the FlightAware track, the missing parts are in the ocean between KLAX and KSAN.
 
MikeD said:
You laugh. This happened in a very high profile accident. Similar with the shift change, just different details. Eerily similar
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Horizontal stab leading edge on B1900 Continental Express out of Houston IIRC. Instant tail stall and nose down to impact.
 
Good thing this was an -800 and not a -700! Would hate to find out the hard way that the dorsal fin separated in an asymmetric thrust situation on the -700.
 
Roger Roger said:
are the missing parts not just closeout fairings?
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The part that detached from the front of the vertical stab, known as the “dorsal fin”, is there to increase the surface area of the vertical stab so it has more effectiveness in an engine-out situation. It matters less on the longer airplanes (-800 and -900), because the moment arm from CG to VS is long enough to produce sufficient force, but for the shorter airplanes (-600 & -700), that moment arm isn’t long enough and the VS needs to be bigger to have enough authority. For manufacturing simplicity, they keep that dorsal fin on all of the models.
 
thepotato232 said:
My brief association with Swift out of Phoenix ended up being plenty of time to develop some opinions about the way the company was managed, but I don't think for a minute that the pilots failing to do a walk-around out of Victorville (or elsewhere) was the issue. Glad the crew handled it as well as they did. I'm sure the shop's maintenance will receive the scrutiny due a plane shedding parts in flight.View attachment 53576
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Later, at the shop...

Wrench clocking in looks at his tool box shelf. Shouts across the hangar to the wrench clocking out.... "Hey, Vern! Did you order a bunch of extra bolts?

More seriously, it's more than a little weird that there are entire pieces missing from the V-stab (with no other obvious external damage), while the H-Stab is full of impact dents. WTH?


Edit: G'dammit, you beat me to it:
Roger Roger said:
Day shift: so we got the right side fasteners in on the vert stab closeout fairing but ran into some busted nutplates on the left and none of those are in
Mids (in the middle of eating a cheeseburger and checking Facebook): he said the stab fairing was good to go right?
Click to expand...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Ecl!pse said:
The part that detached from the front of the vertical stab, known as the “dorsal fin”, is there to increase the surface area of the vertical stab so it has more effectiveness in an engine-out situation. It matters less on the longer airplanes (-800 and -900), because the moment arm from CG to VS is long enough to produce sufficient force, but for the shorter airplanes (-600 & -700), that moment arm isn’t long enough and the VS needs to be bigger to have enough authority. For manufacturing simplicity, they keep that dorsal fin on all of the models.
Click to expand...
You know, that got me thinking.... which is almost always a bad idea with a brain besotted with two beers after being at high altitude for 7 of the last 9 hours. But Hemingway, what if we opened the leading edge of the V-stab (or any other airfoil) and made a channel down the middle exiting at the trailing edge around the rudder. Wouldn't that create a venturi and accelerate air (to something higher than airframe airspeed) over the rudder making the rudder more effective?
 
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