United 747 suffers minor tail damage at HKG
 

In Chinese: http://news.hkheadline.com/dailynews/content_hk/2013/10/08/257469.asp

The aircraft on Oct 7 at around 8:30am local time was pushed back into a building and suffering tail damage as a result. There was a pic of the tail damage on the print edition of the newspaper, but not the online edition.

I'm wondering why the aircraft was there, as it's not the one used on the SFO routes. No flight delays or cancellation as a result.

According to the article, the aircraft was in maintenance and was being towed between hangers.

Flying through HKG a few times the last couple of weeks I noticed a lot of aircraft (very congested) over at HAECO and a few UA planes (2 747's and a 777), so I am not surprised this could happen.

I wonder if HAECO is financially responsible for the oops.

Found these images on Reddit:

http://i.imgur.com/doOP2tb.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/qOkuZHT.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/hFKN3Nt.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Kvvy9s9.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/AdljLbh.jpg

http://imgur.com/a/F521X

Oh yeah, that looks "minor". Just buff it out.

A little duct tape and it will be good as new. ;)

How the heck would you repair that?! Get a new tail?

Let's hope this bird gets retired before a JAL 123 scenario can repeat itself.

I think between the JL123 and CI611 crashes they've figured out the need properly repair tails (and airplanes parts in general).

You have truly embraced the UA repair philosophy. I was on a PMUA 757 and had the overhead area fall apart during flight. Out came a roll of duct tape to the rescue.

I'd be curious to know how much it costs to fix the tail? Fortunately it's American & not one of those fancy European models! :-P

Maybe they can find one with the tulip on it. That would be an improvement. ^

Do you even know what happened on JAL123? It was the pressure bulkhead that caused the crash, not the vertical stabilizer.

The explosive decompression which occurred as a result of the aft pressure bulkhead failing ripped the vertical stabilizer off. It was because of the loss of vertical stabilizer and consequently hydraulics that the plane crashed (or the hydraulics might have been damaged during the explosive decompression). All this was caused by an improperly repaired tail following a tail strike many years earlier.

You can fly a plane unpressurized, but it's much harder to fly a plane without hydraulics (I think a DHL plane in Iraq was the only jumbo jet to do it successfully). All this to say that it's a fair statement to be worried about an improperly done repair causing problems later. But, I would really hope lessons have been learned and repair procedures are much better now.