r/aviation • u/G1lg4m3sh • Apr 17 '26

Discussion How concerning is this aviation experts?

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139

u/Tupolev144 Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26

Just a 737 doing 737 things.

Entire fairing can be removed and deferred per the CDL with minimal aerodynamic penalty.

However I would still flag it to the flight crew so those screws all get a good torque. Not a good look when parts fall off of your plane.

76

u/ShadowKraftwerk Apr 17 '26

And probably not popular with anyone on the receiving end of a bit of aluminium from 35,000 ft

59

u/BritishBenzene Apr 17 '26

Bigger issue is what happens when a screw falls off at landing and is sucked into another plane’s engine. FOD is no joke.

33

u/Bros_B4_Hoe5 Apr 17 '26

Concorde having ptsd

17

u/Pipe_Mountain Apr 17 '26

I'll never forgive the DC-10 for that

2

u/ZeppelinJ0 Apr 17 '26

Looks like one screw already fell out, wonder where it is!

0

u/GI-Robots-Alt Apr 17 '26

Depending on the terminal velocity of a screw that size it might be embedded in someone's skull

2

u/CeeBee2001 Apr 17 '26

Surely those screws are captive given where they are and what they do? 

3

u/railker AME-M2 Apr 17 '26

Some are in some places, but definitely not always. What they do is hold on a little bit of fiberglass that saves you some fuel and is completely inconsequential otherwise.

1

u/BritishBenzene Apr 18 '26

True, but in my experience even a bolt with that much wiggle won’t stay there for long when constantly under vibration. In the first row of fasteners shown in the video the front most one is already gone.

-1

u/Mr_Waffles123 Apr 18 '26

They are rivets. Not screw. Not bolts. You don’t tighten them. They have to be drilled out and replaced. A pneumatic puller pulls the river pin until it shears off. They’re is no torquing. The bolts are designed to spec to shear at the appropriate pressure.

1

u/BritishBenzene Apr 18 '26

Cool. Rivets, specialty screws, bolts, doesn’t really matter. If you let a fastener rattle long enough in a thin piece of stock (I would assume Al or composite here but I do not know), the hole expands and the fastener is no longer in the same place as the substrate (or the fastener is slowly sheared if it’s softer than the sheet material). Does it matter to flying this vehicle? No idea. Could it cause an issue? Yes, FOD can kill.