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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] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

What you’re seeing is the flap, used sometimes during lift-off, but most commonly to apply drag for a slower landing. It’s not ideal, but flap-less landings are done and trained for. This plane was delivered in 1994, and they’ve been slowly phasing them out.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

It's not a flap (back of the wing), it's a slat (front of the wing), says so right in TFA.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Ah my bad, the linked article didn’t specify and I wrongly assumed the angle the pic was taken at.