Originally Posted by
tdracer
The really sad part was that the China 747F had crashed in the Pacific ocean - with most of the wreckage under thousands of feet of water not enough was recovered to figure out what had happened (I was involved, and remember sitting in a meeting brainstorming ways we could physically loose two engine at the same time). When El Al went down into the apartment building the wreckage was readily recoverable and Boeing determined relatively quickly the fuse pin issue (BTW, technically it was not "fatigue", it was stress corrosion, and it was significant that both accident aircraft were freighters - 747 freighters fly more cycles at/near MTOW than the passenger versions).
That was a dark time at Boeing - the Lauda 767 had gone down in that same time period due to the T/R deployment in flight - meaning three major Boeing crashes due to mechanical failures of the aircraft in a relatively short period
.
That resulted in a major overhaul of the Safety Review processes (I was drafted into the Propulsion Safety Review Board early during that overhaul) - we were told in no uncertain terms that it was quite simply unacceptable for Boeing to loose (sic) another aircraft due to a design/build error.
BTW warbirdfinder, that's consistent with the story I heard as well - they knew they were going to crash so the people not involved it flying the aircraft were sent to the rear of the aircraft prior to impact - which most likely saved their lives.
An interesting observation, given the different situation described.
Huge credit too to the pilot in the circumstances initially described by Warbirdfinder.
Jack