B738 'pickle fork' crack sees aircraft withdrawn

[moa999]

Korean Air seemingly has a very high hit rate of problem aircraft - 9 of 42

Boeing 737 NG: 9 Aircraft Grounded In South Korea Due To Cracks

simpleflying.com

 

[moa999]

So given limited range of a B738, that means a (three?) sector flight with minimum 10 hour intermediate rest stops for the flight crew?

From memory the 737 delivery flights just needed a stop in Hawaii.

 

[Melburnian1]

From memory the 737 delivery flights just needed a stop in Hawaii.

Maybe on the way back, given typical (adverse) winds, two stops will be needed.

 

[Melburnian1]

Indonesia's Lion Air has two aircraft affected, while Garuda and Sriwijaya Air respectively have one and two:

Structural Cracks Also Found in Lion Air's Boeing 737 NG

With Lion Air's finding, there are currently five units of Boeing 737 NGs that sustained the structural cracks in Indonesia.

en.tempo.co

Indonesia grounds 3 Boeing 737NG planes over cracks finding - Xinhua | English.news.cn

 

[Quickstatus]

How may cracks has WN discovered in their massive fleet of 750 x 737 (of course not all are the NG series)

 

[Melburnian1]

How may cracks has WN discovered in their massive fleet of 750 x 737 (of course not all are the NG series)

This article is dated (three weeks old) but by then, ony two aircraft affected:

Southwest Airlines Finds Cracks On 2 Boeing Airplanes During Inspections

Southwest Airlines Co said Wednesday it found cracks on two Boeing 737 NG airplanes and removed them from service after US regulators last week ordered urgent inspections.

www.ndtv.com

 

[moa999]

Virgin has 75 737s. Only 19 are the next gen aircraft potentially affected.

All 80 Virgin 737s are next gen, as are all 75 Qantas.
It's just that only 19 Virgin and I think 33 Qantas are over the 22k cycles mandated by the FAA for checks within the next 1000 (or 5-6 months)

I suspect a check of younger aircrafts pickle forks will be added as part of regular maintenance.

Southwest number now at 3, and looks like Korean had a lot of high cycle aircraft - all 9 were over 30k

Qantas, Southwest step up checks of Boeing 737 NGs after more cracks found

Qantas Airways Ltd <QAN.AX> and Southwest Airlines Co <LUV.N> are stepping up checks for structural cracks on Boeing Co <BA.N> 737 NGs after discovering problems with planes that did not require urgent inspections, airline sources said.

www.reuters.com

 

[DC3]

The name Wirth (less) must cop a ribbing?

 

[amaroo]

Once again Purvinas doing a great job of trying to scare and disrupt the travelling public.

Why not... Our members recognise this might be scary to the travelling public and our engineers will be working as quickly as they can to inspect the remaining aircraft

He's the ultimate one eyed monster! Even the ALP rejected him.

 

[jb747]

There were always bound to be some affected. QF has done the right thing, and instead of waiting as the AD would have allowed, has checked all of the aircraft quickly. They now know that a couple are affected, and they won’t be carrying passengers until repaired. From looking at that group of 34 aircraft, they would also be pretty certain of the state of the others, unaffected by the AD. There’s no doubt that a check will be part of their recurrent maintenance from now on.

Calls for grounding of the aircraft, are just plain silly.

The only aircraft that don’t have cracks are ones that haven’t been built yet.

 

[drron]

Which other airlines have grounded all their non cracked 737NGs?

 

[NM]

Calls for grounding of the aircraft, are just plain silly.

Indeed plain silly. However, grounding the fleet would have created a lot of overtime pay for the engineers required to undertake the inspections and sign-off the aircraft as fit to operate and return to service. So which group would stand to benefit from such an action [rhetorical question].

 

[DC3]

Reminds me of the story of Chicken Little?

 

[Melburnian1]

This latest article (from 1811 hours on Thursday 31 October) is confusing as it states that Boeing has to deliver parts to Australia with Qantas engineers then in Brisbane having to attempt to remove the pickle fork frame:

Qantas short on aircraft for weeks due to 'pickle fork' cracks

Qantas will be short of domestic aircraft for several weeks as it waits on Boeing to repair structural cracks on at least two of its Boeing 737s, which make up the backbone of its short-haul operations.

www.brisbanetimes.com.au

This is at odds with the discussion above about 'repair lines' being established elsewhere and what I'd thought (obviously incorrectly) would be QF (despite the admitted problem) flying the aircraft to USA for repairs.

This latest article implies that the aircraft cannot now be flown anywhere until repaired (although QF says Boeing has said an aircraft typically has '1000 (further) flights that it can operate.'

The article does not answer how if there are only spare parts totalling 25 pickle forks and at least 38 aircraft worldwide identified as having the problem, why QF would receive new parts ahead of other airlines.

For the vast majority of AFFers, including me, who are not engineers this situation throws up more questions in a sort of Mark Latham-like conga line. Answer one, and another comes to mind. Very complex.

 

[pauly7]

Loving watching the Chicken Little’s screeching around in this thread. Thank you @jb747 for some calm perspective.

 

[Melburnian1]

Which other airlines have grounded all their non cracked 737NGs?

I have always been told 'never ask a question to which you know the answer.'

 

[Melburnian1]

The articles about pickle forks have been the most read today on 'The Age' website.

Very poorly handled by QF, which appears to be so complacent it didn't realise to counter the assertions about two aircraft, not just one, (apparently confirmed by a source independent of the union) it should have brought out its CEO, or if he was not in Australia, on leave or otherwise unavailable, the next in charge.

One doesn't successfully counter adverse publicity by ostrich-like behaviour.

Prospective passengers may have short memories but they don't want to associate an airline brand name with the word 'unsafe'. There's always a cohort scared of flying full stop. One such public figure was former Liberal Premier of Victoria The Hon Jeff Kennett, no shrinking violet in other areas.

 

[DC3]

The articles about pickle forks have been the most read today on 'The Age' website ...

Found it:

Pickle fork: A long handled fork used for extracting pickles from a jar

 

[pauly7]

Found it:

Pickle fork: A long handled fork used for extracting pickles from a jar

That looks really handy actually good Christmas idea Maybe QF could put them on the QF store for 5000 points.

 

[opusman]

So the hosties won't be able to extract a pickle to place on the NP inspired toasted-sandwich in business class, hardly the end of the world!