Southwest Airlines has had another 737 develop a hole in its fuselage while in flight.  The aircraft suffered a rapid decompression, performed an emergency descent from 36,0000 to 11,000 feet and then landed at Yuma’s airport. 

According to one passenger account in the media, the hole was about 3 feet long but I would cautiou that these accounts often are wrong.  Passengers were met with another aircraft and the flight continued onwards to Sacremento.  One passenger hitched a ride with a family relative in a Cessna 182.

Southwest has announced that it is grounding its 737-300 fleet for emergency inspections.  This particular aircraft was delivered in 1996 which is neither particularly old nor particularly young for such an aircraft. 

A little less than 2 years ago, another Southwest flight from Nashville to Baltimore also developed a hole in its upper fuselage and had to divert to an airport in West Virginia.  That hole was slightly larger than 1 square foot and was later determined to be caused by metal fatigue.

Is Southwest or this aircraft type unsafe?  No, not really.  I do suspect that we’ll see some recommendations come out of this event with respect to inspecting for metal fatigue more frequently.  Southwest’s aircraft isn’t really old at all by any standards but Southwest does tend to perform many cycles (a landing and takeoff together is a “cycle”) each day with its aircraft compared to many airlines.  The numbers of cycles an aircraft takes on is far more important than its actual age or how many miles it has flown.

Expect some delays if you’re flying Southwest as they have 81 of this aircraft type in its fleet and until inspections can be performed, Southwest is liable to have a shortage of aircraft for its flights since 81 aircraft represents not quite 15% of its overall fleet.

Filed under: Airline News by ajax