Miracle on Qantas A380 Flight 32
Photo: Ramani
What are some common parts that may fall off a plane and cause it to crash?
Aircraft parts such as fasteners, hatch covers, cargo doors or engines falling off planes are very rare.
On July 25, 2000, a metal strip did fall off from a Continental DC-10 as it took off from Paris for Newark International Airport. That part did not cause the DC-10 to crash. Instead, it punctured a tire on the Concorde taking off. It then ruptured a fuel tank, triggering a huge explosion and caused the Concorde to crash.
Rare as it may be, aircraft parts do in fact fall off from planes. On 4 November 2010, a Qantas Airbus A380, Flight 32 suffered a failure in one of its 4 engines on a flight from Singapore to Sydney. Thankfully, the aircraft landed safely at Changi Airport.
Parts of the engine cover crashed down and the debris scattered across residential, business areas and school in the Indonesian Batam Island.
Fortunately, the children who were still attending classes in school were not hurt when some of the parts landed on the roof.
The other incident happened on 21 February 2021 when the right engine of a Boeing 777 failed shortly after take off from Denver to Honolulu.
People reacted in horror as huge pieces of the engine casing and chunks of fiberglass rained down on the ground, missing one home and crushing a truck
Again, the plane landed safely and no one on board or on the ground was hurt.
Cargo door failures seems most common in the past. On June 12, 1972, the left rear cargo door of a DC-10 blew open and broke off between Detroit and Buffalo. This did not cause the plane to crash.
On February 24, 1989, a United Airlines Boeing 747 on a scheduled flight from Los Angeles to Sydney experienced a cargo-door failure as well
On 3 March 1974, a Turkish Airlines DC-10 crashed after an improperly secured cargo hold door fell off after passing 12,000 feet during the climb after departing Paris Orly, killing all 346 people on board.
On 25 May 1979 one DC-10 crashed when its left engine actually fell off, causing loss of control as it was taking off at O’Hare Airport.
Airplane parts don’t normally fall off today because manufacturers have developed better technology to fix problems of other older aircraft designs.
In a 2018 study, the European Aviation Safety Agency concluded that the likelihood of fatally injuring people on the ground due to falling parts of a plane is low enough that it does not constitute an unsafe condition.
But in Japan, preventing objects falling off airplanes is required by all air carriers after a series of serious incidents on the grounds.
I still remember when I flew to Narita Airport in Tokyo, we were required to lower our landing gears prior to crossing the shoreline or 14 nautical miles from the airport so ‘blocks of ice’ that may be dislodged from the aircraft will fall harmlessly into the sea instead of causing injuries to residents on the ground.
View YouTube video ‘What Caused The Air France Concorde Crash?’
here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6GbPIScwx8
View YouTube video ‘A380 engine failure | The story of Qantas 32’
here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv9tqnHYtJQ
View YouTube video ‘United Airlines Boeing 777 suffers catastrophic engine failure over Denver’