380 wing hits the deck.

[unmanned transport]

Typical news media speil, but this incident is unfortunate. It's good that no one was hurt.
It will most likely create a blip in Toulouse production.
****************************************

1 January 2006
£15M CRASH LANDWING!
50-ton jumbo jet part falls off crane
By Matt Glass
JUMBO jet builders watched in horror as a new £15million wing fell from a crane and shattered.

The gigantic 50-ton plane part which had taken TWO MONTHS to build was smashed in seconds when a support chain snapped.

Workers at the Airbus plant near Chester stood in stunned silence as the 208ft wing - the length of seven double-decker buses - lay crumpled on the giant factory floor. An Airbus insider told the People: "As blunders go, it is astronomical. Everyone just fell deadly silent and people didn't know whether to laugh or cry."The wing was being hoisted for shipment to Germany over Christmas when disaster struck.

The damage is repairable but is estimated to cost £5 million to fix. Bosses at European-owned Airbus had to frantically ring round workers on their Christmas holidays to ask them to come in and repair the shattered wing.

The Chester plant - which is also building wings for the world's biggest passenger plane, the new double-deck A380 Megabus - had painstakingly constructed the part for Germany's Lufthansa airline.

Our source said: "Jumbo wings are incredibly expensive and take a long time to build, so the repair bill is going to be massive.

"It also means the plane it was destined for won't be ready on time. It's incredibly embarrassing."

An Airbus spokesman refused to comment.

[sixmilehighclub]

Oh bugger. :uhoh:

[Clarence Oveur]

The Chester plant - which is also building wings for the world's biggest passenger plane, the new double-deck A380 Megabus - had painstakingly constructed the part for Germany's Lufthansa airline.
Doesn't sound like it was a wing for the 380.

[BEagle]

Megabus? Who plagiarised that - I first termed the A380 (or A3XX as it then was) the 'Megabus' on PPRuNe several years ago!

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I guess....:rolleyes:

Sounds like a lot of overtime for a chum of mine who works on the 380!

[A-FLOOR]

Can we get a source for the article please? Apart from the fact that it has been written by a guy named "Matt Glass".

And what plane has 208ft wings? Sounds more like the Spruce Goose to me, if at all. Now the A340-600 has a wingspan of 208ft and a bit, and it just so happens that Lufty has some of these planes on order. Coincidence?

[alexmcfire]

Obviously not an A380 but A340 wing, pretty sloppy written story I say...

[IFixPlanes]

Can we get a source for the article please?...

http://www.people.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16536541%26method=full%26siteid=93463%26headline =%2dpound%2d15m%2dcrash%2dlandwing%2d%2d-name_page.html

[BEagle]

And I'll bet you all check out "Dear Rachael" whilst you're visiting that site....;)

[TheOddOne]

At least no-one was hurt, so their risk assessments and method statements for use of lifting equipment worked. Many construction sites now demand secondary slinging so that if the primary system fails, the result won't be catastrophic. It's a pain in the *ss apparently, but a LOT cheaper than having an accident like this! Secondary slinging has been used recently at LGW during construction of our major projects, whenever a load passes over other structure of value. Loads of marshallers in place, too, to prevent anyone straying into the arc of the load.

TheOddOne

[Alex Whittingham]

Not like Lockheed then, who picked the spar up off the hangar floor, patched it up, and fitted it to the rest of the airframe where the fix lay undetected until, many years later, the aircraft bashed into the runway at BZN and picked up a corresponding patch on the other side. Mind you, it cured the rigging problem...

[enicalyth]

Ahhh. We don't talk about that. It polished out with a rub of T-cut and a dab of yellow defect paint.

Timmies and Tommies except Damian are perfect.

Also funny that you drop something that is so brittle it flies into a thousand pieces each travelling supersonically and missing maternity hospitals and schools by millimetres (and at least one million onlookers' jugulars) but can be superglued together on a half-shift overtime after the Queen's speech.

[Brian Abraham]

lemmee see - 208 foot wing - that means wing span of 416 feet plus width of centre wing box. My, these new airy plain thingies are big.

[allthatglitters]

The Chester plant - which is also building wings for the world's biggest passenger plane, the new double-deck A380 Megabus - had painstakingly constructed the part for Germany's Lufthansa airline.
It's a play on English, just like some well known exams

[Volume]

The wing was being hoisted for shipment to Germany over Christmas when disaster struck
When it was hoisted to be send to Germany, it must have been an A318, A319 or A321 wing, all other wings are shipped to France for final assembly.

Except Lufhansa has decided to buy the A380 as a kit plane and do final assembly by themselves in Frankfurt of course :}

Edit : Sorry, I have to correct my statement. All wings except for the A380 wing are shipped to Germany for systems and high lift device installation at Bremen, before the A320, A330 and A340 wings are flown to France for final assembly.
Anyway, the only wing that is really shipped is the A380 wing, the others are flown.

[matkat]

Sorry cannot give You a link to the story but I read it in the local Chester newspaper yesterday it was undramatic and factual(I know the story as work at Chester) what happened is that when the wing(it was for the A380)was being lifted from the jig a shackle broke which caused the wing to drop the Airbus manager responsible for the wing reports in the article that the damage is estimated in the £100K+ range and not in millions as stated in the rather badly written article from Mr Glass,Airbus also said it will not impinge on any delivery as another will be allocated for the damaged one.

[Sky_Captain]

JUMBO jet builders watched in horror
Now would that be the one's in Seattle :p

Well at least nobody was hurt :ouch:

[saman]

Volume,
Sorry to be a pedant but the A320 Family wings do go direct from the Chester plant to the aircraft's final assembly site -TLS for the A320 and HAM for the A318, A319 and A321. Their systems and High lift devices are fitted in Chester.

All A300 and A330/A340 wings go from Chester to Germany for system and high lift device fit before going to TLS for Final assembly into the aircraft.

A380 wings come diect to TLS from Chester, oops sorry, Broughton.

Have a happy day,