SFO is a UAL Maint Base. Blown duct, perhaps just out of overhaul. In any event, stuff happens.
You are exactly right... These things do happen.
Cold air duct failed. Not an uncommon occurrence. Front end crew made safety assessment and decided to return to base most likely due to pax concerns. Not a safety of flight issue. Press needs to report the news, not create the news.
"The truth doesn't sell papers"
It would be interesting to see a complete newspaper with no exaggerations, no opinions, no lies, and only contain the factual truth.... I am not going to say it does not exist, but I will say I have never seen one in all of my many years of travels.
True that. My B-I-L is an executive producer at a news station and he has told me that in order to sell ads, they have to sensationalize news stories to get people worked up so they will watch the news.
sensationalize - Add Untruths to make it sound more interesting... Tell they to save it for HollyWood!
time deploy a few wet-vacs, there may be some seat covers in need of refurbishing.
What absolutely poor reporting. This author should be banned from writing aviation news and stick with kiddie stories. I guess this is what we are getting from our illustrious journalism schools these days. What a sorry situation and poor publicity.
The interior didn't "fall apart", it had a plugged air duct and popped a panel joint.
It was more than one, but you are exactly correct.... I would like to know what they found in the duct.
It's one thing if you know nothing about airplanes at all, but this was a big nothing!
All it was simply a maintenance issue with the aircraft that resulted in a Air Turn Back and an emergency being declared.
They state "They declared an emergency because it was an unscheduled landing."... BS, I do agree he should have declared an emergency, but there are diversions all the time... Yesterday we had a diversion due to a bleed valve. He diverted and followed his QRH and never declared and emergency... I think someone in the PR department missed this one when they came up with a BS reason.
This happens more often than you think and it wasn't fuselage fatigue. It was an interior panel that separated from the fastener.
Apologies, I was scrolling through articles on line and only looked long enough to roll my eyes.
I could have sworn that I saw something originally about a vibration too but can't find it now.
Yes I saw those reports too, about "the whole plane shaking" and some extremely loud noises comparable to "bowling balls dropping".... So really, an interior panel popping 'shook the whole plane' ? Where do they get these quotes and descriptions, etc from ? A small to medium sized piece of interior plastic panel popping loose cause a 200,000+ lb AC to shake ? Thats one I'd like to see for myself !
Could you cite the reference? I wonder if the author could differentiate between fuselage and interior trim. Just taking it with a grain of salt.
They get sent to Roswell, NM.
I was so sure I would come to comments and see something written by commentor Kyle Green blaming QANTAS for this..............or saying it is an 'X' Qf aircraft.
Red Green can fix it. It just needs some duct tape and it will be back to American's standards.
It was a Non-Event, and this is not news... It is a maintenance item of a broke plane that is either now fixed or being fixed. The captain followed procedures and did what he was supposed to do in a professional manner.... I have seen a lot worse... They never lost pressurization and never lost structural integrity.. Where I support his decision to return, there was really not anything thing in the cockpit that issued a problem and all his systems were working... He could have continued and been fine. He returned to that station because it was convenient and had company maintenance to take care of the problem.. Job well done on the crew.
Oh, the drama of it all. Falling appart....yes unnerving, but if the outside skin was compromised, then there would be a large SUCKING sound and a big outward draft. That is a great airplane, I wish that frame would have been moderized and continued.
Good pictures of the interior falling apart.
Ditto... Airbus would be at the bottom of the ocean by now.
Boeing and Airbus are both excellent aircraft.
Well, they did say there was a pretty good vibration as well, which was probably caused by more than a duct blowing apart. My guess is whatever it was caused the blowup.
Boeing's small issue probably would have been larger if this was an Airbus. These are close to daily circumstances on all aircraft, some smaller some larger than others.
An American Airlines flight heading from San Francisco to Dallas made an emergency landing after the cabin's wall panels cracked loose.
A friend reports his SFO-DAL flight returned to SFO after the cabin depressurized and the interior paneling started to break up.
You know, this is kinda a non event, but you have to wonder about that vibration??????
It was actually SFO-DFW. DAL is the identifier for Dallas Love Field.
An American Airlines Boeing 757 has been forced to make an emergency landing after passengers noticed the cabin wall was starting to break apart in midair.
Passengers reported hearing a "loud bang" as the walls started to tear apart at the seam, exposing the aircraft's insulation.
The aircraft was on its way from San Francisco to Dallas on Tuesday. The incident occurred about half an hour into the flight.