Not sure if anyone picked up on this (only read up to page 6) but anyone else notice in this pic posted earlier :-
The door handle is cracked, and if you look very closely at the pics from the outside, the top and bottom flaps on door 2R are also cracked open too as can be seen in Pics 2,7 and 10 from the link below which would be consistent with the handle inside being in that posision :-
Manila, lo squarcio nell'aereo - Galleria - Repubblica.it
Just wondered if this is of any significance due to the reports of a door "popping" in flight ?.
On a slight thread drift, it is possible to close the 747 doors and from the inside it looks normal, but from the outside the door doesn't quite engage properly and leaves a 1/2" gap between the door and the frame - not suggesting at all that is what happend here as from the outside pics, it doesn't look to be the case. I've had to re-open and close the door numerous times before removing the jet bridge when this has happend - but seeing this makes me wonder what would happen if it wasn't noticed before the a/c departed and if it closes enough to trigger the switch to show it as closed on the f/deck ?.
Back on track, word on the street says that the X-ray images of the bags loaded at LHR have been pulled to see if anything that shouldn't have been in there was loaded - this is just hearsay though from someone who works at LHR in T4, don't even know if such a system exists although I'm sure after Lockerbie it would be a good idea to keep the images of the hold baggage "just incase" - geddit (I'll get my coat).
