Norwegian Air Shuttle 737 Hit by Baggage Cart at Gdansk Airport
Norwegian Air Shuttle Boeing 737
A Norwegian Air Shuttle Boeing 737 was struck by a baggage cart while sitting at the gate at Gdansk Airport (Poland) damaging the airliner.
NAS Flight 62, which was to fly to Oslo (Norway), (registration # LN-DYW) was cancelled after the incident so the plane could be repaired.
There were no injuries reported.
The 737 was put back in to service 8 hours later.
JAC
Image: Flickr [spotterjohnson]
Category: Airnation
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It only took 8 hours for her to be put back in the air? There mustn’t have been any damage to the fuselage.
For God’s sake pleeeeeeeese!!!!!?
A baggage cart has not the intelligence or the where with all to strike anything whatsoever!
Were Ground crew or flight crew asleep or was it in this case a matter of down right incompetance caused by a coming together in this instance.
And please explain to this dizzy blonde disabled female why it took 8 hours to establish if that cart could endanger a beast such as a B737 when eventually in flight? Clearly the report lacks detail but I shudder to think what a baggage cart can do to ground a B737!!!
This is winding me up so much that I need to get a cup of tea………..
Jennifer, the reports on this incident only indicate that a baggage cart made contact with the belly of the 737, but it doesn’t specify how it happened. What i find surprising is the fact that the plane was flying 8 hours after it happened.
The skin of a 737 is relatively thin, and the slightest ding or scratch would create a weakness that would undoubtedly cause a rupture at altitude.
Chris, I note your response and would add that I attempting humour with regard to the mental capacity of a baggage truck!!
The fact you say that the skin of a Boeing 737 of the modern breed is so thin as to render a dent or scratch as potentially dangerous proves the verisimilitude of our recent exchanges regards the older classic airframes such as B707/B727/DC8/DC9/DC10/L1011 and so forth……
I once was a passenger on a British Airways Concorde on a ride over the Atlantic enroute from BHX to CDG. Normally a 70 minute hop but was extended to 120 minutes in order to reach and endure maximum height and speed. I was seated at my request over the wing area ( as most would passengers given the design of the bird ) and noticed a significant ‘crack’ in the wing skin, large enough to fit a standard paperback book on the spine into.
On informing the crew of this, I was told that this normal for this aircraft owing to the stresses of the environment that it was enduring on a daily basis and that the aircraft was well engineered for this. We anded safely and the aircraft remained in service until the stupidly early enforced retirement of the type.
My contention is that aircraft should be built to withstand more than just lightning bolts, windsheer, excess wing flexing/flapping in flight ( something that scares many passengers ) but for outer skin damage or degredation and that builders use the maxim that ‘strength and endurance over rides costs and performance’.
I for one may just wish for the old ocean liners gain!!
Jennifer, when i suggested that scratches or dings to aircraft skin are harmful, i was speaking specifically to the skin of the pressurized fuselage. At altitude, the skin of pressurized aircraft endures a pressure of about 7psi. At this great pressure, even the slightest “ding” or “scratch” in the aluminum skin will act as a weak point causing the skin to rupture.
Scratches or cracks in the skin of unpressurized parts (such as the horizontal and vertical stabilizers, wings, flaps, landing gear doors, etc) won’t pose any danger at altitude since the skin has equal pressure on both sides.
If manufacturers made the skin thicker, weight would be a huge issue…