AVIATION ACCIDENT
Introduction
Boeing 737 was a monumental aircraft by the time it caused the accident. This claim is informed by the fact that the aircraft was made in 1960 and had had a lot of tears and wear. Several reports claim that the vessel had been pushed to its envelope, to imply that it had over lived its usefulness. In an interview with one of the surviving pilots and a blogger, Patrick Smith, Patrick confessed that he believes that the system is just too outdated for the current technology. The system had been updated too much time that it was only prudent that the company gets rid of it completely for the sake of safety. Several designers also claim that the Boeing 737 Max 8 had an extremely thin body that could not contain turbulence so easily (McDaniel, 1995).
The meeting convened by the Safety Board’s Meteorology Group in Boulder, Colorado, on March 27, 1991 provided a report which was an investigation into the likelihood of bad weather as one of the contributing factors to the fatal airplane accident (McDaniel, 1995). The scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) NOAA, and the University of Wyoming were in attendants to assist in investigating pertinent weather phenomena into the matter. The report partly blamed bad weather on the accident but concluded that some other factors like human error and mechanical failure must have played a major role. The unfavorable weather conditions were identified by the committee to be prevalent during the accident. Some meteorological parameters that were found to have caused havoc include speed, strength, and direction of the wind (McDaniel, 1995).
These aspects of wind were varying with height so that the pilot failed to govern the direction and speed of the airplane amid these changing conditions. At one point, the speed of the wind was determined in the black box to be 80 miles per hour over mountainous terrain, 40,000 feet above the sea level. Obstacles like clouds were found to be of destructive effect. The greatest aspect of the obstacle that played a critical role is the angle relative to the obstacle. The shape and size of the obstacle, atmospheric instability, and humidity were quite unpredictable. The committee also gives a complicated report leeward wave modeling, whereby the leeward waves interact highly with the surface (McDaniel, 1995). The report concludes with the precautionary measures that the company ought to have considered in order to circumnavigate the horrendous result of the crush. In this section, the committee concludes that the sendoff was done hurriedly without considering the weather patterns and prevailing conditions (McDaniel, 1995).
Critically looking at the report, one can easily cast disbelief in the figures. It is noted in another parallel report that in as much as the climatic conditions were the characteristics of the point of accident, there is no empirical proof that they prevailed on that fateful day. It is therefore unsafe to believe the proposal as it is without scrutiny. These extreme climatic conditions are known to occur in the region for about 15 days every year, particularly during the month of July. It is not known in history when these conditions prevailed in March. This information, therefore, puts a lot of questions in the report that says the accident was purely due to bad weather (McDaniel, 1995). Digital Flight Data Recorder (FDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) for Boeing 737 were recovered from the accident spot and safely taken to Washington, D.C’s Safety Board’s laboratories for readouts. The recorder was FDR was a Fairchild Model F800 which is limited to 5 parameters. The samples were otherwise found to be slightly inconsistent with the committee report. This is therefore a proof that the report was not fully informed about all the necessary conditions and factors that necessitated the fateful accident on March 3 1991 (McDaniel, 1995). It is therefore important to mansion alongside bad weather other pertinent issues like machine error and human error. The main report obtained from the black box, however indicates that either one or both engines of the airplane malfunctioned in the process. The report gives poor aerodynamic simulation, CVR spectral signature as the evidence from the wreckage. The report further explains that at the time of impact, there was power development from the engine during impact as observed in pressure gauges and transmitters. At the time of impact, one engine was ahead of the other with 2 seconds (McDaniel, 1995).
Conclusion
There were three main causes of the crush of Boeing 737 on March 3 1991. The most evident one is bad weather, whereby atmospheric pressure, wind direction, speed, and strength were so varied at 40,000 feet altitude that the pilot seemed to have lost control of the aircraft on the mountainous terrains. The other factor that played a critical role was machine failure. There was a problem with the pressure and rotation of the engines at the time of impact. Perhaps these were just results of turbulence due to eddy currents due to extreme weather conditions like waves and humidity. The last factor that presumably played the most critical role in the calamity is human error. The engine had been eroded and was too old to be trusted with human life. The weather patterns were not established before the plain could be flagged off. The pilot must have made several errors that triggered the final impact.
Reference
McDaniel, J.W. (1995). “Strength capability for operating aircraft controls.” SAFE Journal, 25,
- 28-34.