Two recent "trends" with commercial aircraft seem to be suffering a bit rise in numbers. One is the number of airliners suffering engine issues, this seems up on recent levels. The second is the number of commercial aircraft suffering gound incidents or accidents.
These are way up over the last few months, these while normally minor involve the aircraft either hitting a light pole or clipping another parks plane ,or more commonly being hit by ground vehicles. In one case the air bridge ripped off the aircrafts door.
Now while these incidents are normally just a PITA for passengers they do offer some real potential for danger. You see even a small amount of damage to an aircrafts skin can lead to a catastrophic event if it's not repaired properly. And with costs rising daily more or less every airline is counting the pennies. Sooner or later theres going to be a crash caused by minor damage being badly repaired.
Dont laugh, it's happened before. Japan airlines lost a plane with 15 crew and 505 passengers back in August 1985 as a result of a faulty repair. That repair wasnt done by cut price repair company either it was done by Boeings own engineers.
The crew did a stunning job of flying the crippled aircraft for 32 minutes before it crashed. Since then a number of highly trained pilots have recreated the situation in a simulaator. None managed even close to 32 minutes. The crew had no flight controls to speak of and really had no hope of a safe landing. But they faught to the end.
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