Word: fin
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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What caused the disaster? The first and perhaps most significant clue was found the morning after the crash by the crew of a Japanese destroyer cruising in Sagami Bay. The sailors discovered floating on the waves a 15-ft. section of the 747's 35-ft.-high vertical tail fin. Further searching in the water turned up more than 30 other plane parts, most notably a 10-ft-long portion of the rudder assembly and a 104-lb. fiber-glass duct containing tubing and valves that had been attached to an auxiliary power unit in the tail section (see diagram...
...cannot be flown without its entire tail fin, which helps stabilize the big craft, and can be flown only with great difficulty without the attached rudder, which is moved to alter the plane's heading, or horizontal direction. The pilot can vary the thrust of the engines and use ailerons, hinged sections of the plane's wings, to maintain altitude and make turns, although directional control is difficult...
...Transport, said that the bulkhead was found at the crash site and that it had been "peeled like a tangerine." It was possible, he said, that if the partition had cracked in flight, the air rushing from the cabin could have had enough force to dislodge the hollow tail fin. American experts theorized that the large number of takeoffs and landings, each involving a pressurization or depressurization of the cabin, required in the short-range use of the 747SR could have accelerated metal fatigue in the bulkhead. The crashed aircraft had made some 18,000 "cycles" (a takeoff...
...knew of cases in which it took three years before a crack became visible after an aircraft was heavily jolted. Japan's Ministry of Transport promptly ordered that the tail areas of all 747s registered in that country be re-examined, with special attention to the link holding the fin to the fuselage...
Shortly afterward, Boeing sent a worldwide advisory from Seattle suggesting that all carriers using 747s "may wish" to follow the Japanese example by visually inspecting the tail fin and rudder structures on these planes. The company also suggested an inspection of the rear bulkhead. A spokesman for the U.S. Air Transport Association said that "everybody will follow those recommendations to a T." The procedure, which should take about two hours, can be done between flights and during refueling stops...