The article downplayed the seriousness of a tail strike, but they can be quite serious. A tail strike can damage not just the skin of the aircraft, but also the aft pressure bulkheads of some aircraft. A damaged pressure bulkhead could cause the cabin to suddenly lose pressurization at altitude, with potentially major consequences, especially on a flight across open ocean.
(not in the aviation industry, just a fan, so grain of salt needs to be applied)
Aircraft age isn't in years, but in number of pressurisations (takeoff/landing cycles). A low cost airline optimising their schedule to squeeze every second of their airframe with constant short distance hopping around would result in much more of those compared to a legacy airline's widebody that is flown daily on a very long flight. So it depends on aircraft type/size and usage patterns, but Ryanair's 737 will be able to handle less years than DHL's 767Fs.
So for the 747 in the story, 22 years is on the long end, but not unheard of.
Do the climates a plane flies in and out of make a difference too, or is this such a minor factor compared to the act of pressurization that it doesn't matter? I remember flying out of Chicago once when I was a kid and having to wait for us to be coated in some special fluid because it was so cold that day that the takeoff was going to be especially stressful on the aircraft otherwise.
It depends, but usually after a certain number of cycles, there will be a larger maintenance check (D-check, see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_maintenance_checks). This will include removing all paint and performing lots of testing for cracks. It's possible to extend the life of an aircraft as long as it is economically viable (by replacing parts and performing the necessary structural repairs).
As a layperson, "they landed immediately and required inspection before being allowed to fly again" (not a direct quote, but it represents what the article said), seems pretty severe to me.
When people do this in cars, they might get worse mileage or track funny down the road. When the aviation industry just glances and says "Ah, it's fine", people die.
I agree. But this article describes thoroughly and repeatedly that no one said "Ah, it's fine."
You said, "The article downplayed the seriousness of a tail strike." I was pointing out that the thing they described multiple times did not sound like downplaying to me, as a layperson. "They immediately landed," sounds serious. "They grounded the fleet," sounds serious. "The planes required inspection before being allowed to fly," sounds serious. Nothing in the article reads to me, as a layperson, as if they were saying a tail strike is not serious.
I just re-read the thread and I realize that I took your comment "seemed pretty severe to me" incorrectly. I thought you were saying that it was an overreaction, but rather you were saying that it was a strong enough reaction and that my assessment of them not taking the tail strikes seriously was incorrect.
In that case, we're both right about different things. I was referring to the article, and you were referring to the airline.
The airline absolutely did the right thing and took the tail strikes seriously. As for the article, it focused on the strong reaction to the error in the software. The article did not discuss the serious consequences of a tail strike. Considering that multiple aircraft (and many lives) have been lost due to tail strikes, I was surprised that it was not mentioned.
Ultimately this would be true for most anomalies. It's one of the reasons commercial air travel is as safe as it is.
In a car, you hit a bump, you keep going. In a plane, something unexpected happens and that plane is grounded. The utility function is just too skewed to take even a slight risk in this regard.
It's a matter of regulation and policy. I was on a regional bus recently in the rain (Ontario's GO Transit) and a small car next to us hydroplaned and bumped the side of the bus. The driver immediately
- Pulled over onto the shoulder,
- Passed around a pad to collect everyone's contact information,
- Summoned a replacement bus, and
- Called the provincial police to escort us along the shoulder to the replacement bus.
In the moment, all of this felt a little over the top, and the total delay of about 20mins total was pretty frustrating given that I ended up missing a connection. But at the end of the day, it builds my trust in the safety of that system that the fitness of any particular piece of equipment is not up to the individual drivers to judge— part of paying for a ticket on the state-run transit system is expecting a higher level of safety than, say, what you might get on a Chinatown bus line (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinatown_bus_lines#Accidents). And I think I was also glad that it hadn't happened to me in my personal vehicle, where I would have to be the one to assess fitness and then deal with the insurance and so-on in the aftermath.
We could certainly operate an aviation industry with a lot less regulation and a lot less care for safety. Operated that way, air travel would be noticeably cheaper. But it would also be more dangerous.
What’s the alternative? Land again and don’t look at it?
Inspections after abnormals are fairly common and many amount to nothing more than “inspected tail skid and aft fuselage, no defects founds, return to service”.
I was not suggesting an alternative. The comment I responded to started with, "The article downplayed the seriousness of a tail strike."
I was pointing out that the article described a course of action that, in fact, sounds serious to a layperson. It seems to me that "land and have a required inspection" is an indication of seriousness, not an indication of downplaying the severity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aft_pressure_bulkhead