Two days ago, a Swift Air/iAero Airways Boeing 737 landed in San Diego Airport with tail parts missing.
The 21 year old B737-800, with registration N820TJ, landed in San Diego International Aiport (SAN) after taking off from the Southern California Logistics Airport, more commonly known as Victorville (VCV).
In the photo taken by Doug Kempf, moments before the landing, you can see the aircraft with some access panels missing from its vertical stabiliser dorsal fin. It is possible that the rear stabiliser also suffered damage.
According to the same source, the damage occurred in flight and the crew were unaware of the situation.
Feature Image: Doug Kempf
The panels missing does not put the the aircraft In any significant instability that would cause much concern, note the pilots felt nothing hence the stability of the plane wasn’t affected much. What’s worrying for me is how those panels came off with the amount of screws securing it to the vertical fin and how the hell the dorsal fin came off, there are fourteen bolts securing it to the upper fuselage. I would like to hear the report of this incident
If you careffully check the second photo you can see at least one important damage on the leading edge of the left part of the fixed horizontal stabilizer
They were really lucky and people on the ground also
To be graduated with Mechanical Engineering and currently taking the AME license and write something like “It is possible that the rear stabiliser also suffered damage” is concerning.. There is nothing called the rear stabilizer on an airplane..
The safety system works…. even when there is a problem, the remaining structure works… in this case, they were two doors and a fairing, no big deal..
Hey…..???? Most of it got here safely…..What’s the beef??!! 🙂 🙂
And your point is ? Victorville serves as a storage depot for planes was this one coming out of storage? Where do you see potential stabilizer damage? If there was the crew would have certainly felt that yet they’re inflight reported no issues. IF there was sufficient stabilization issues they would not have been allowed to land at SAN
Are you serious? You can’t see that big piece missing from the bottom front of the vertical stabilizer?