quote:

The NTSB materials group is working to estimate the number of cycles associated with fatigue crack initiation and propagation in the No. 13 fan blade and to evaluate the effectiveness of inspection methods used to detect these cracks.

This will be interesting to determine. It would seem that an inspection failure is the probable cause for the separation. IF it was a failure on the inspection cycle protocol we would see a lot more failures.

Thanks for sharing this. The pilot, Tammie Jo Shults, is a hometown girl from Tularosa, New Mexico.

quote:

Originally posted by Opus1:

quote:

The NTSB materials group is working to estimate the number of cycles associated with fatigue crack initiation and propagation in the No. 13 fan blade and to evaluate the effectiveness of inspection methods used to detect these cracks.

This will be interesting to determine. It would seem that an inspection failure is the probable cause for the separation. IF it was a failure on the inspection cycle protocol we would see a lot more failures.

Well maybe.

Given the number of cycles before inspection and the number of units in service the incidence of failure isn't very high. But including ultrasonic to the visual & penetrant inspections should pretty well cover it until a major tear down is done.