Hard landing

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20 years 11 months

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Royal Air Maroc Flight 200 was completing a routine Atlantic crossing from Casablanca, carrying 210 passengers and 10 crew. The weather on approach to JFK’s runway 4R, however, was not so routine, the airport being battered by rain and 28kt gusts. The 767-36N/ER (CN-RNT) was unstable as she crossed the numbers, and proceeded to slam down, nose wheel first, before settling on her main landing gear.

Despite what was surely a very bumpy ride, the crew maintained control through the rollout. She exited the runway, taxied to the gate, deplaned her passengers and underwent normal post-flight procedures. Although the flight crew almost certainly must have known that the landing was out of the ordinary, nothing was ever reported to the tower or ground, some say because they were “shy.”

Move forward a few hours to preparations for Royal Air Maroc Flight 201, the return leg which is normally operated by the same aircraft. After crews had moved the plane from a hardstand to the gate, loading it with cargo and catering and commencing boarding, the First Officer trudged out into the still pouring rain and continued high winds to perform his pre-flight walk around. And that’s when he noticed something wasn’t right: A blemish in the outer skin, at roughly the same time passengers noticed water running down the side panels of the cabin. Closer inspection revealed that 767’s outer skin was seriously compromised. Needless to say, thankfully RAM 201 never left the gate that night.

The plane was moved to a hangar where she could be inspected to ascertain the entire scope of the damage. It was dramatic: Multiple joints, ribbing and fasteners were either crushed or shattered like glass. The nose gear area suffered internal damage, and the outer skin was split open so much in some spots it was easy to see to the sky from the inside of the plane.

A team lead by Boeing with assistance from Delta Tech Ops was tasked with the repair. For four months she has remained at JFK, during which she’s been stripped down to her skeleton, her outer skin removed removed in damaged areas. The Boeing techs went to work essentially rebuilding these sections from scratch at an estimated cost of $11 million.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b218/steverow50/ram_dam767_jfk_060609_1200-1.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b218/steverow50/ram_763_080809.jpg

Original post

Member for

16 years 7 months

Posts: 564

Inspections

Are their no post flight inspections done by groundcrew?IE airframe engineers?

Imagine if they had departed. :eek:

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18 years 7 months

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Interesting story, but just out of interest where did the images come from? They're both by Tom Alfano who I suspect hasn't given permission for them to be used without some kind of credit.

Links to them would probably be more appropriate:

http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=6588814&nseq=8

http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=6647878&nseq=6

Paul

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20 years 11 months

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Jesus wept Paul ..why don't you relax and just enjoy the story :(:rolleyes: the images are not from Jetphotos ..they're from a blog

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18 years 7 months

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Just saying links would be more appropriate, that's all. I'm a photographer, these things bug me! :D

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14 years 1 month

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OMG!:eek: I used to not be scared of flying!!

Amazing to think that there were no indications in the flight deck that the fuselage was badly damaged!!

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20 years 5 months

Posts: 10,625

Well, if all the controls handle correctly, there is no real way to tell from within the cockpit once the aircraft is on the ground.
Due to the fact that aircraft fuselages naturally flex, there is no point installing sensors to monitor the fuselage as they would be triggered so often that the crew would discount the alarms and "normal". At least, that is my understanding.

Of course, if they had taken off a pressurisation problem would have quickly made itself known.

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18 years 9 months

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Goes to show how strong the nose gear is, if the airframe suffered $11m worth of damage.

Good to see a happy ending here.

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18 years 7 months

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Of course, if they had taken off a pressurisation problem would have quickly made itself known.

Water running down the inside walls of the cabin would be a fairly good indication of a nice hole somewhere, so it probably wouldn't have pressurised at all. No idea how much the damage weakened the structure though, quite considerably I imagine!

Paul

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18 years 9 months

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do you think the cabin skin would have peeled off like the Hawian B737 did a few years ago?

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18 years 7 months

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I think it's probably pretty much impossible to even vaguely guess as none of us know the exact extend of the damage (and most of us aren't qualified to guess anyway). Safe to say it probably wouldn't have been good though!

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20 years 5 months

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Water running down the inside walls of the cabin would be a fairly good indication of a nice hole somewhere, so it probably wouldn't have pressurised at all.

Hence why I said a pressurisation problem would make itself known ;)

We do not know how much water was running down the walls. May only have been a couple of drops which would easily be misdiagnosed as Air Con condensation.

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18 years 6 months

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When was that incident?
Given the declining residual value of current B767s a quite costly action.

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18 years 7 months

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It happened almost a year ago and the repair was completed 6 months ago. Not really new!

May only have been a couple of drops which would easily be misdiagnosed as Air Con condensation.

Does that happen? I've never seen water on the inside walls of a plane through condensation. The 'smoke' through the vents on the A320 series in really hot weather can be quite interesting but I don't ever remember seeing water on the walls.

It would certainly get my attention if I saw it!

Paul

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20 years 5 months

Posts: 10,625

Saw a youtube video with flight attendants handing out napkins as the Air con was leaking out water.
Appears to happen once in a while when certain conditions are met. What those are I do not know.

do you think the cabin skin would have peeled off like the Hawian B737 did a few years ago?

Worse, The whole front section could have broken off.

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14 years 2 months

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Interesting article Mr Rowell, thanks for bringing the story and pictures to our attention.

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18 years 6 months

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Worse, The whole front section could have broken off.

Bullcrap.
The airplane wouldn't pressurize under such conditions.
If the aircraft had taken off, it would have returned after a short time.
No real safety issue here.

Member for

18 years 2 months

Posts: 809

No real safety issue here.

One of the funniest things I've read in ages! Cheers! :D :D

[QUOTE=steve rowell;1535073] It was dramatic: Multiple joints, ribbing and fasteners were either crushed or shattered like glass. The nose gear area suffered internal damage, and the outer skin was split open so much in some spots it was easy to see to the sky from the inside of the plane.

A team lead by Boeing with assistance from Delta Tech Ops was tasked with the repair. For four months she has remained at JFK, during which she’s been stripped down to her skeleton, her outer skin removed removed in damaged areas. The Boeing techs went to work essentially rebuilding these sections from scratch at an estimated cost of $11 million.

Bullcrap.
The airplane wouldn't pressurize under such conditions.
If the aircraft had taken off, it would have returned after a short time.
No real safety issue here.

Are you saying that this is not serious damage?