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Passenger sees "wing coming apart" on United flight from San Francisco to Boston; flight forced to land in Denver (www.cbsnews.com)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Are we looking at different pictures?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Flying while missing a whole tail rudder is entirely doable. A hole in a wing just isn't as serious.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'll give you that, but what you said was that it was just the skin peeling

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

It looked like peeling skin on my phone. ¯\ _(ツ) _/¯

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Oh. Turns out, we were looking at different pictures! You're right, that one with the flaps retracted does kinda just look like it's the skin. I was looking at the one with the flaps deployed, where it's much more obvious that the core of the flap is missing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

That depends on how it affects near-stall flight.

The most efficient cruise that is legal, is 1.30x stall-speed.

If that damage on the leading portion of the wing means your "1.30x" stall-speed cruise is now actually 1.00x, you're gambling.

There was a DC9 that killed everybody because of pebbled ice wrecking its actual-stall-speed, years ago.

Landing also requires that you dance at the edge of stall, & if your idea of where stall-speed is, is wrong, ..

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