Found a stat about aging airframes that made me question our inspection intervals

I was reading through some FAA accident reports last week and found out the average age of a commercial aircraft in the US fleet is now around 12.4 years. But here's the thing that got me - the report showed that nearly 40% of structural fatigue cracks found in the last 5 years were on planes older than 15 years. We follow the standard inspection schedules from the manuals, but are we really accounting for how fast these older frames wear? Some guys at my hangar in Phoenix say we should push for more frequent eddy current checks on high-time birds. Others think the current intervals are fine because the OEMs did the math. Where do you fall on this - should we be advocating for tighter inspection cycles on older airframes or is that just overkill?

2 comments

2 Comments

zara_hill4627d ago

I had a buddy up in Seattle who worked a night shift on a 757 that was pushing 25 years. They found a hairline crack in the wing spar during a routine visual that the eddy current check from just six months prior had completely missed. Scared the hell out of him.

michael_bennett1126d ago

Woah, that's wild. I've heard stories about those eddy current checks missing stuff like that before. It really makes you wonder how much we're trusting those machines instead of just looking at the metal with our own eyes. That's the kind of thing that keeps guys awake at night, knowing there's a weak spot that could have gone unnoticed for years.