eli5: How do plane crash investigators determine what broke mid air vs. what broke when it hit the ground?

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When a plane crash occurs, usually there are hundreds of bits of plane shattered everywhere. I watch shows like “Air Disasters”, but they never explain how they know the “right wing flap came apart mid air” or know how the “fan blade dislodged on impact and not in the air”?

In: Engineering

8 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

One thing they talk about on those shows is looking for the four corners of the aircraft— the nose, both wingtips and the tail. If they find something on the ground 4 miles away from where the four corners are then they would know that it fell off mid air.

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