Death of an airliner

February 26, 2024 12:13 PM

While reviewing the handful of 747 accidents caused by airframe failings, the narrator mentioned that the United Airlines 747-122 – which had lost its cargo door out of Honolulu on February 24th, 1989 – was repaired and returned to service... I was just curious about what became of United Airlines’ N4713U after the media intensity surrounding that fateful night. Was it was still flying? At the very least, I thought I’d find a story that got more and more “interesting” as the airliner aged. . . And I wouldn’t be disappointed.

Follow-up prequels:
Requiem for an Airliner (1) (for a flight aboard N4713U when she was brand new)
Requiem for an Airliner (2) (to learn about her post-accident repair at Honolulu)

posted by ShooBoo (34 comments total)

From the second link: "So despite the promises of only carrying Hajj pilgrims, and despite landing in a raging storm that still didn’t drown out the sound of nearby gunfire, they loaded 800 passengers onto the 400 seat jumbo and took off."

:-O

and then: "Once again, Boeing’s robust engineering carried #19875 through."

Well, that hasn't aged very well.
posted by Gorgik at 12:32 PM on February 26 [3 favorites]

The Boeing that made the 747 isn't the same Boeing that built the 737MAX-8/9. The older Boeing deserves our love and respect and we can certainly hope it comes back some day.

Reading the history of 19875 is like seeing that video where they throw a Honda Super Cub off a rootop and it keeps running. The engineering on this airframe was incredible.
posted by JoeZydeco at 12:43 PM on February 26 [38 favorites]

Seconding what JoeZydeco said - the Boeing of that time was generally a top notch engineering organization. The Boeing of today is a profit at all costs organization.
posted by drewbage1847 at 12:49 PM on February 26 [14 favorites]

"Almost instantly, nine Business Class passengers were either torn or blown out of the airplane, eight of them still strapped in their seats."

uuuugh
posted by gottabefunky at 1:15 PM on February 26 [3 favorites]

Israel once stuffed over 1,000 Ethiopian Jews on a 747. So I will add another mark that the engineering wasn’t a problem.

This is a interesting story and kinda sad to see the plane being broken up at Plattsburgh
posted by CostcoCultist at 1:16 PM on February 26 [3 favorites]

gottabefunky: It gets worse, if you read Wikipedia:

"Despite extensive air and sea searches, no remains of the nine victims lost in flight were found at sea.   Multiple small body fragments and pieces of clothing were found in the Number 3 engine, indicating that at least one victim ejected from the fuselage was ingested by the engine, but whether the fragments were from one or more victims was not known."

posted by Joakim Ziegler at 1:22 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]

The Boeing of today is a profit at all costs organization.

Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas, then McDonnell Douglas took over Boeing.
posted by tclark at 1:24 PM on February 26 [9 favorites]

For those into old planes, there is a zombie 747 at the Tijuana airport with a colorful history. I can’t find a current update, but this article gives a nice overview. I flew through TIJ in November 2023 and the plane is still sitting there as it has for a decade and a half.
posted by CostcoCultist at 1:26 PM on February 26 [3 favorites]

https://airwaysmag.com/pan-am-boeing-747-vietnam/
posted by torokunai at 1:27 PM on February 26 [1 favorite]

Wow! Great find. Best of the Web.
posted by j_curiouser at 1:31 PM on February 26

From the post-accident repair article:
they developed a system that allowed them to change tail-mounted #2 engines on DC-10s without the specialised lifting equipment of a maintenance hangar. It saved the airline a bundle in revenue hours.

Umm, I seem to remember something about maintenance shortcuts on lifting in engines to change them on a DC-10 ending up in America's deadliest (accidental) plane crash, so that worries me a little.
posted by ambrosen at 1:37 PM on February 26 [5 favorites]

Ah, Plattsburgh. Back when it was an Air Force Base, I was a toddler living in Ticonderoga, New York, at the southern tip of Lake Champlain. They used to fly fighters on night flights out of there, for training, or whatever, I don't know. I was like three. But these jets would fly very low and very, very fast down the middle of Lake Champlain, because it was like an uninhabited highway of clear water. Then they would hop over the small spit of land that separated Lake Champlain from Lake George and haul ass down Lake George before turning, and if I understand correctly, climbing and slowing down for the overland leg back up to Plattsburgh.

That little spit of land between Lake Champlain and Lake George being exactly where I lived, and every few nights those jets would come screaming right over our house in the dead of night and scare the living shit out little three-year-old me.

It's probably a big part of why I am like I am.
posted by Naberius at 1:39 PM on February 26 [13 favorites]

My grandmother lived near an American air force base in Germany and when we went to visit the fighter planes would scream overhead a few times a day. As family lore goes, my brother would run screaming and sobbing into the house every time it happened until one time he didn't. Everyone thought "oh good he has gotten used to it” except what actually happened is he was playing Cowboys and Indians with the neighbor children and they had tied him to a tree in the shared garden. So he was still screaming and sobbing but also tried to a tree.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:49 PM on February 26 [28 favorites]

But these jets would fly very low and very, very fast down the middle of Lake Champlain.

Poor Champy.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:50 PM on February 26 [4 favorites]

[I]n January of 1998 a complaint was filed by the Dubai Islamic Bank alleging Sissoko had bought his jumbo with funds that were stolen from the bank using black magic.

wait hol up hol up how did they steal the money
posted by AzraelBrown at 2:11 PM on February 26 [15 favorites]

Planechat:

The airport here in Fargo, North Dakota -- Hector International Airport, named for the farmer whose land the airport was originally built on -- is made up of several long, straight, north-south airstrips smack in the middle of the impossibly flat Red River Valley. It is also home to the North Dakota Air National Guard, so it is built to support big military planes.

Probably once or twice a month a huge military plane, not sure what kind but it looks like a olive-drab whale with huge propeller-driven engines that you can hear coming a long ways away, will do five to ten touch-and-go loops at the airport. From what I understand, it's a training run for new pilots of this plane, because it's in a flat, wide-open space where they can't do much to mess up.
posted by AzraelBrown at 2:20 PM on February 26 [3 favorites]

[I]n January of 1998 a complaint was filed by the Dubai Islamic Bank alleging Sissoko had bought his jumbo with funds that were stolen from the bank using black magic.

Yeah, that definitely needs a bit more elaboration.

And here it is! (holy fucking shit!!)
posted by Naberius at 2:23 PM on February 26 [43 favorites]

Metafilter: screaming and sobbing but also tried to a tree.
posted by whatevernot at 2:38 PM on February 26 [18 favorites]

last time I was tried to a tree I nearly dried
posted by elkevelvet at 2:41 PM on February 26 [1 favorite]

"nearly dryad" surely
posted by pwnguin at 3:08 PM on February 26 [20 favorites]

The Boeing that made the 747 isn't the same Boeing that built the 737MAX-8/9

In all fairness, the 747 crashed a lot during its first decade in service.

If you want to pick a particular "era" of Boeing, you probably want the one that built the 777.

Aviation today is still a heck of a lot safer than it was when the 747 was rolled out, and you shouldn't let any of the "old timers" convince you otherwise, without a mountain of data to back up their claims.
posted by schmod at 5:10 PM on February 26 [6 favorites]

There were very few 747s falling out of the sky in the 1970s. Per Wikipedia, only nine 747s suffered hull losses (where the plane is destroyed or economically unrepairable) in the plane's first decade, and five of those incidents were while planes were on the ground (including the Tenerife collision between two 747s in 1977 and two aircraft blown up by hijackers), others by human error, and one or two by problems with the aircraft.

Aviation is indeed far safer than it was even 20 years ago, but not all of that is due to superior structural engineering. Avionics, safety systems and regulation, ground systems and other factors are all working together to keep aviation safe.

No matter what, Boeing post-1997 is not Boeing pre-1997. My grandfather, mother and step-father were all employed by Boeing, and my cousin still is. Prior to buying McDonnell-Douglas, Boeing was an engineer's aircraft company; since then, it has been run by bean-counters and slaves to Wall Street.
posted by lhauser at 6:24 PM on February 26 [6 favorites]

> Prior to buying McDonnell-Douglas, Boeing was an engineer's aircraft company; since then, it has been run by bean-counters and slaves to Wall Street.

You are what you eat.
posted by nickzoic at 6:25 PM on February 26 [7 favorites]

> Prior to buying McDonnell-Douglas, Boeing was an engineer's aircraft company; since then, it has been run by bean-counters and slaves to Wall Street.

The enshittification of the skies.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 6:26 PM on February 26 [3 favorites]

Multiple small body fragments and pieces of clothing were found in the Number 3 engine, indicating that at least one victim ejected from the fuselage was ingested by the engine, but whether the fragments were from one or more victims was not known."

Also mentioned in Requiem for an Airliner (2), one of the more inside links:

Repairs to N4713U fell into three broad areas – fuselage, flying surfaces, and engines. It was obvious that engines #3 and #4 had ingested airframe parts, cabin debris and more. The United A&Ps would remove all four engines, but #3 and #4 were impounded by the NTSB.

As part of the process, the engines were flushed out with water and the water was captured and strained. Butler confirms that human remains were recovered from those engines in this way.

posted by zamboni at 8:03 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]

The current and previous CEOs were both engineers with experience in the aircraft industry. I’m not sure the statement that they have been run by bean counters is as accurate as is feels. The last CEO whose tenure was the 737 Max project started as an intern at Boeing in 1995. The current CEO worked at GE on aircraft engines.
posted by interogative mood at 8:06 PM on February 26 [2 favorites]

If you google Boeing McDonald-Douglas merger you can find a dozen plus articles dating back a nearly decade blaming bean-counters. this Atlantic one seems to do a good job. It’s interesting that this point really has seeped into the public discourse.

Meanwhile, automakers are making larger heavier vehicles that are more dangerous to bikes and pedestrians and we don’t seem to have any popular demand for action
posted by CostcoCultist at 8:24 PM on February 26 [1 favorite]

Is there any sort of cut-off for length of service? I'm not wild about being out over the Atlantic and noticing that the toilet has an ash tray.
posted by brachiopod at 9:13 PM on February 26

Toilets have ash trays because rules posted on signs can be broken and *then* what.
posted by tigrrrlily at 10:11 PM on February 26

I thought the toilets had ashtrays because to remove them would change the design of the plane which is generally to be avoided.

Even if I’m misinformed, and those planes have been going since the 70s, as long as they’re still safe I think that’s great. So many unrenewable resources are used to build planes that using them as long as possible seems like it’s only a good thing.
posted by LizBoBiz at 4:26 AM on February 27 [1 favorite]

The toilets have ashtrays on purpose - because if someone sneaks a butt in the lav, it's better that they use the ashtray than dump the lit butt anywhere else!
posted by scolbath at 5:37 AM on February 27 [4 favorites]

Aviation today is still a heck of a lot safer than it was when the 747 was rolled out, and you shouldn't let any of the "old timers" convince you otherwise, without a mountain of data to back up their claims.
posted by schmod at 8:10 PM on February 26

This is 100% true. However, as someone posted a bit later, it's less to do with better engineering and more to do with better training for crews to act like crews (Captain-As-God is an ancient and dangerous concept these days) and better systems and procedures around things like weather and maintenance.

My Dad was a million-miler on Eastern and Delta and had a TON of miles as a passenger on TWA and others through a 40-year stretch. I remarked to him the other day that I am amazed he survived as much business travel as he did from 1965 through the mid 90s.
posted by Thistledown at 6:28 AM on February 27

Funny you mention ashtrays and signs... because it is totally the case that any modification to an aircraft, however small, needs to be approved.

Example: United Airlines Just Grounded A Fleet Of Planes Because Its No Smoking Signs Don’t Turn Off

spoiler alert: just some forgotten paperwork
posted by JoeZydeco at 8:00 AM on February 27

Great post / thread, thanks! That article Naberius posted is great; loved this bit:

Tom Spencer, a Miami lawyer who was asked to represent Sissoko, vividly remembers going to meet him in Geneva's Champ-Dollon prison.

"I talked with the prison warden, who asked me whether or not Sissoko was going to go to the United States," Spencer says.

"I said, 'Well, you know, we'll see.' And he said, 'Well, please delay it as long as possible.' And I said, 'Well why?' And he said, 'Because he's flying in fantastic meals from Paris every night, for us.' And that was my first bizarre encounter with Baba Sissoko."

posted by Bron at 8:54 AM on February 27 [3 favorites]