Originally Posted by
Buster15
They were also quite unlucky in that the tyre debris was thrown up at speed and impacted the underside of the wing very close to a junction between a thicker and thinner (machined) section. The fuel pressure pulse then fractured the skin at that junction.
I think it is well documented that the tank did not rupture at that point. The absence of an air gap in the tank due to intentional overfilling caused conditions where a shock wave could pass through the fuel, blowing out a hole far from the point of debris impact. Another violation of a SOP, another hole in the Swiss cheese.