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If it was powder she would have been 100% wrong :D. "Cocaine" would be the powder. When mixed and cooked with garbage, it becomes solid "crack". Hence the term "crack rock".

Back to your regularly scheduled program.

+1. Southwest had a hole in the plane rip open during flight, I'm sure it didn't take off that way, and obviously the underlying cause went undetected.

I'm sure this stuff happens more often than we'd like to think. :) I don't tell my wife that though, she is already scared of flying.

The NTSB Aircraft Accident Report for Aloha Airlines Flight 243 states that a passenger boarding the aircraft noticed a crack in the fuselage but did not mention it to the airline staff. During the short flight from Hilo to Honolulu, the aircraft suffered explosive decompression resulting in a huge section of aircraft's skin being torn away. After seeing pictures of the damaged aircraft, I'm amazed that the flight crew was able to maintain control of the aircraft and guide it to an emergency landing in Kahului.

After reading about the accident, I always take a quick look around the fuselage as I'm boarding.

people, like the OP in this case, tend to exagerate.

+1

If I was in that case, I would've marked the tail down and tracked it on FlightAware later.

Al-Cu precipitation hardened alloy. I would not worry too much.

I'm not even going to ask..... :D

They do take cracks seriously, particularly on short hop ac. Aloha and more recently SW have had metal fatigue incidents on AC that have had a very high percentage of cycles to age. I believe you are a commercial chemist or materials expert so you know far more than I on the subject but the way I understand it is the pressurize / depressurize cycles tend to act on an aircraft's skin (at the rivets) much like bending an aluminum can back and forth; eventually it breaks. I am sure this was just a surface (paint) crack but they do have to look at every one.

Aircraft (and engines and other items)are tracked both by hours and Landing / Take Off Cycles and in the case of engines, type and duration of power changes.

Some failure modes are driven by cycles like metal fatigue and others are driven by hours of use like corrosion and some even have combinations of both.

The FAA requires inspections and replacements based on both factors and the airlines sometimes have more restrictive limits.

As far as this incident reported by the OP, who knows what it was and the fuselage is not going to fall apart on the ground.;)

Cheers

Brilliantly and succintly put. I was just being a bit of a smart-... as flying is so safe. Rivets/joints tend to be the weak spots. That is why there is a trend to composites and adhesives. On 767 etc on TATLs far less cycles and even safer.

+1. Maybe it was a crack, but no need to rush pax off..... I do not think planes are set to self - destruct on the ground.....

Thank You! (I have no material science or chemistry background...but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express about a month ago :))

Your analysis could make you a candidate for urinalysis...

:D

For those too young to remember this is how much metal an old Boeing can lose and still fly. (I like the old Boeings--they are built like trucks. The 737 was designed ten years closer to the B-17 than the 787.)

It did last 89,090 cycles, after being designed to last for 75,000. And I guess it was fortunate the 737-200 does not have any tail mounted engines to be damaged by all that stuff, and have normal engine operation to reach an airport rather than having to ditch. ^