Originally Posted by
vilas
There was a documentary by Al Zajeera on making of B737 800 in which Boeing workers had made serious allegations on NG fuselage which breaks on RW excursions.
I've seen the documentary. It alleges that manufacturing defects are to blame to the break ups; I don't think that is the case, although those complaints should be heard and investigated, but it may be simply the way the 737 fuselage was designed in an era of different standards. I agree with the other posters that it is not fair to expect IX1344 to survive in one piece after going off the "cliff" (see TACA in 2008 or Pegasus this year). But take a look at history and there is an apparent trend. Compare the photos of CFIT short of runway accidents: AIRES 8250 (737-700, hit 260ft short, broke into 3), with Air Canada 624 (A320, hit 740ft short, smashed through ILS equipment and powerline, traveled up embankment, remained intact). Or ditching accidents: Lion Air 904 (737-800, broke into 2), Air Niugini 73 (737-800, broke into 2), with US Airways 1549 (A320, remained intact). Or hard impact on grass: Turkish 1951 (737-800, broke into 3) with Ural 178 (A321, remained intact). This is not to mention American 331, Caribbean 523, and UTair 579, all 737-800s which broke into 2 or 3 after traveling over relatively flat ground. The 777 also seems to fare well. BA38, OZ214, and EK521 all remained intact despite hard impacts. So perhaps its not Boeing to blame, but grandfathering of older design standards. But enough with anecdotal evidence; I've read somewhere (don't remember the source) that the 737 is a 5G fuselage, while the A320 is a 16G fuselage, can someone with expertise in this area shed light on this claim?
Originally Posted by George Glass
If you look at the stats for the US , Europe, Canada Japan, Australia, New Zealand etc the accident rate for the B737NG is approximately zero.
7 (in the region listed, 6 if IST is not counted as Europe) does not equal 0. But you have a good point; that developed countries indeed have a lower accident rate. Sadly, passengers around the world don't get to cherry pick 6 countries to fly out of. Passengers in India can't simply decide to fly Ryanair or ANA on a domestic flight, and in a country with 0 A320 overruns, despite vastly outnumbering 737s; would a nervous flier pick Air India Express, or Indigo/GoAir/Vistara, looking at the accident history? Same goes for China, where there has never been a A320 hull loss, I believe, despite the type being almost half the fleet. We can't just cherry pick the "best" countries; after the MAX accidents, so many people stated that SWA, UAL, and AAL never had a problem, the MAX must be fine, not realizing that the 3 airlines only adds up to 16% of the fleet (not to mention some pilots of SWA and AAL weren't happy with it either); and that no other mainline commercial jet designed in the 21st century has yet to have fatal accident. PS: the instant dismissal of ASRS reports in this thread is alarming.