Thread: Cracks in wings ground two 737 NG jets

I sometimes really wonder about our American cousins! I worked in the offshore oil industry for many years and some of the terms used there are baffling, to say the least. I also hold a FAA pilots licence, but I am damned if I have ever heard of this before:

Inspectors found the cracks in a part called the "pickle fork,"

"Pickle fork (tool)" in Wikipedia redirects to "ball joint", so I'm guessing that it is another name for some sort of connection, perhaps even a ball joint, possibly connecting control surfaces to the wing.

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The Federal Aviation Administration hasrequired urgent inspections of certain 737 Next Generation planes— the predecessor to the troubled 737 Max — after Boeing reportedcracks in a part called the “pickle fork” on jets being overhauled in China.The pickle fork helps attach the wings to the fuselage, or the main body of theplane; crack inspections have focused first on the most heavily used NGplanes. So far, 686 have been inspected, and 36 of them — or more than 5% —have signs of cracking, according to Boeing. That’s less than 1% ofBoeing’s total 737 NG fleet, when you take into account newer jets with fewermiles on them that will be monitored over time. But the pickle fork is meant tolast the lifetime of the plane, so whether it’s 5% or 1% of planes cracking,that’s too many.

pickle-forks-737NG.jpg

And that picture makes the origin of the name clear!

We’re well into checking our fleet, zero cracks so far.

I found this helpful in explaining the pickle fork.

Qantas in 737 safety blitz after cracks found in pickle forks in aircraft under 30,000 hrs.


Qantas in Boeing 737 safety blitz