Originally Posted by
BearX220
The jack screw failure on AS261 was (A) a result of faulty maintenance procedures and (B) a one-time event. You might as well avoid all 737s because of their never-explained uncontrolled rudder incidents, associated with multiple fatal crashes (UA585, US427, etc.).
And (C) "Also contributing to the accident was the absence on the McDonnell Douglas MD-80 of a fail-safe mechanism to prevent the catastrophic effects of total acme nut thread loss." (source:
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/...y/AAR0201.html)
The lack of a fail-safe on a primary control system is an inherent design flaw that was determined to be too expensive to fix/redesign. As I also mentioned, new maintenance and inspections have prevented other incidents.
As for the 737 rudders, I believe the system was redesigned and all planes in use have been retrofitted since 2008. In addition, Boeing installed a limiter on the rudder in the event of preventing a catastrophic event in the case of ANY rudder incident. THIS is failsafe and that is that is what they are for.