Originally posted by skofarrell:
There was no hull loss. The aircraft in question had damage to the landing gear. My understanding is that the repair was completed and the plane in question is back in service.


Skofarrel: You are confusing total loss with hull loss. There was absolutely a hull loss, one that certainly cost a nice bit of change [have you priced a landing gear assembly lately?]. Total losses are very rare in commercial aviation. A $50M plane can have $20M in damage (and this can often happen even with passenger fatalities in say a runway overrun, ala AA MD-80 in Little Rock) and so long as the salvage is worth less than $30M, the plane is not a total loss.
In other words, whether or not a plane is a total loss vs. just a hull loss is usually more a function of salvage value than anything else. Dont confuse aviation with car insurance.


[This message has been edited by paullevi (edited 11-16-2001).]