Quantas 744 Depressurisation
Forget Fairing failure initiating this amount of damage. Skin is the old waffle doubler construction I believe. Two sections of frames missing and the remains of at least two stringer repairs obvious. Other stringers seem to have failed pretty cleanly each side of the hole ? and the fwd frame has failed at some frame joint ?. And why the fillers under the frame feet ? Usually only do this if you replace a frame or skin. The remaining protruding forward Lap joint is very interesting as the lower skin is not connected to it ! And can you see the edge of a Lap joint scab repair ? Looking for the broken bits of frame or frame chord or safety chord but can’t see any - I believe that’s an intercostal sticking up in the lower part of the hole. This looks awfully like a structural failure, with some collateral damage. Don’t see any clues as to where the failure started but the experts will.
At a guestimate of 80,000 hrs and 12,000 cycles this aircraft would be deep into its ageing aircraft and corrosion control inspection programmes plus a whole raft of SB and AD inspections.
If the boffins rule out an explosion, Quantas/Boeing will be doing a lot of heartsearching about grounding the rest of their fleet. At least it’s not the crown skin.