They are so big and it seems like so much could go wrong yet they are statistically extremely successful.
In: Engineering
Aerospace manufacturing engineering technologist here.
Very early in the history of flight, it was felt that safety was the most important factor. To achieve that, it was decided that when an accident happened, it should be investigated with the aim of preventing it from happening again. People won’t be honest with investigators if they felt that what they say may get them arrested, or lose them their job, so these investigations do not hold people responsible. This allows maintenance technicians to honestly give accounts of what was done, knowing that even if they were negligent, they won’t go to jail. This allows investigations to not only find the exact chain of events that led to what happened, but also make a recommendation to prevent it from happening again.
That is why, when an engine pylon cracks, the maintenance team can look up the paperwork for it. Not just things like who worked on it last, but they can see exactly which batch of aluminum it was, who made it, the results of the testing on that batch, the smelter than made the aluminum, the mine that got the ore, etc… Because at some point in the past, that information was important, so it is now all collected, and in order to go onto an aircraft, every part needs to have all the required documentation filled out properly. When I went to school, we had some massive blocks of aluminum (.5M X 1M X 3M) that were donated to the school by an aircraft manufacturer, because the paperwork wasn’t complete so they couldn’t use it..
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