Originally Posted by
widgeon
I still find it hard to believe that such a great engineering company could not have foreseen that the anisotropic properties of unidirectional carbon might have been a problem .
They may not have foreseen it, but there was some pretty conclusive evidence that the blades were not yet up to scratch emerging from the service trials on the VC10 engines. See here for an account of how they fared in heavy rainfall:
https://www.vc10.net/History/nigeria..._the_vc10.html
(originally published in 'Silent, Swift, Superb', Henderson, 1998).