Comments by "Keit Hammleter" (@keithammleter3824) on "Plane Door Gets Ripped Off Mid-Air | American Airlines Flight 96" video.

  1. Mr Mentour Pilot - you seem to have messed this one up. Where did you get these drawings from, which have a blue-print-like appearance? They cannot be genuine Douglas or NTSB drawings as they are shown with metric dimensions. I ask this because your explanation does not make any sense. As shown in your drawing at 4:47, there is NO reason why the vent torque tube should be become bent, as it has virtually no load on it - only the vent plug. And, as far as assuring C-latch safety is concerned, it would not matter if it did become bent. Note that the door mechanism went through more than one redesign. The cargo doors originally did not even have vent plugs You may have been confused with a text description of a different DC-10 door design in which the vertical jack-shaft is operated by the torque tube to the left of the vent plug (as viewed on your drawing) instead of right at the handle as shown in your drawing. In this case the strength and confinement of the torque tube is more important, but the system is still safe, because if the C-latch have not gone fully home, the vent plug will remain open not matter how much force the ground crew applies. The corporate negligence that lead to this incident and the Turkish Airlines crash is much more serious than you have presented. At the DC-10 design stage, major parts of construction were contracted to be farmed out. As part of this, contractor General Dynamics were responsible for FMEA (Failure Mode Effects Analysis - a standard process long used in American aerospace engineering/design) but not the actual door design, which remained with Douglas. GD's FMEA on the door identified that the door design was faulty, door blow-out likely, and the result would bmodee total aircraft loss. This was sent to Douglas long before the Applegate memo in June 1972 (to the same effect) and was not acted on. Apparently it was merely filed along with all the other routine FMEA's. Later, when pressure testing Hull No. 1 on the ground, the door blew out, the floor collapsed, and controls wrecked. Even then Douglas management blamed the chap who closed the door, had repairs done, but did not evaluate the failure mode or take corrective action. When they had Hull 2 tested, its' door failed too, so Douglas added the vent plug to the design. EVEN AFTER THESE FOUR (4) CONFIRMATIONS OF A SERIOUS DESIGN FAULT, DOUGLAS STILL DID NOT EVALUATE THIS FAILURE MODE LEADING TO LOSS OF IN-FLIGHT CONTROL OR TAKE EFECTIVE CORRECTIVE ACTION!!! Between 1973 and 1977, DC-10's suffered 180 cargo door faults, though obviously most did not result in major in-flight incidents. As of 1977, Boeing airliners (much more common that DC-10) had only 17 door faults, with none causing in-flight hazard.
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