Originally Posted by
JDNSW
Undoubtedly - I did not mean to criticise the passenger - just that if it was obvious to a passenger, how did the aircrew and maintenance personnel manage to miss it? The accident report suggests that part of the reason was that maintenance was all done at night, presumably because most flying was daytime.
It is reminiscent of the occasion many years ago where the cook on board a steamer complained to the captain about a crack in the galley deck. When his report was ignored he started marking the date at the end of the crack each day.
Some weeks later, the ship broke in two. Fortunately for science, the half with the dates on it remained floating, and this provided just about the only well documented example of the rate of progress of a fatigue crack in a large structure.