Originally Posted by
KelvinD
Are these "pickle forks" or fishplates related to the items that were reportedly poorly manufactured years ago?
https://www.pprune.org/archive/index.php/t-239918.html
There is an Al Jazeera you tube video, produced in 2010 on this same topic. As far as I could gather, the US Dept of Justice stepped in and halted law suits etc relating to the issues raised by a couple of whistle blowers. In the video, reference is made to 3 737NG accidents which all had one thing in common: the fuselage in each case broke into 3 parts upon impact in pretty much the same location. I was a bit baffled by the terminology used in the documentary, they refer to "failsafe cords" (or chords?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaWdEtANi-0
At around 11mins in to the film, you will see evidence from Boeing that one of the most common defects with the parts as supplied from the manufacturer was "hole mislocated".
(unrelated to the safety issue, I was baffled by the process here: The parts are manufactured in California, shipped by train to Wichita where they get joined up with other parts to become fuselage sections. Which are then shipped by train to Seattle, presumably going via California??)
NO there is no relationship between those parts and the picklefork issue- and trains do NOT go thru calif to get to seattle ( normally )