I fear that EEng #1368 and poorjohn #1369 are right. Boeing will contend that cell temperature (>570 deg F) and pressure (enough to rupture cell) which were clearly unsafe at Boston are “safe” in box at 30,000 feet 5 ½ hours from land. Boeing may have a “battery” of lawyers prove compliance with SCCs but won’t win in the court of public opinion.
Delve behind the actual SCCs in
Federal Register, Volume 72 Issue 196 (Thursday, October 11, 2007) and ALPA seemed concerned from the outset that Boeing might push a “safe containment” strategy but was reassured that FAA would not allow it.
Long ago Boeing relied on its own idea of “safe” to meet fail-safe requirements for 737 fuselage; and it ended badly. Boeing claimed that if the fuselage fatigued, a single "lead crack" would grow along the skin until it reached a fuselage frame, then turn at right angles and a triangular shaped tear would blow out and safely dump fuselage pressure. British and Australian authorities never accepted the concept and a long war of words culminated in Boeing’s glib assurance in letter dated 14 April 1988 that it had "demonstrated safe decompression in lap joints …..". Two weeks later precisely this failure ripped the roof off Aloha Airlines Flight 243. Flight attendant Clarabelle Lansing died and 89 passengers feared they would.
Read full story at
LESSONS FROM ALOHA and sorry for digression.