This looks pretty bad. Yesterday a Qatar Airways A321 was undergoing maintenance at a remote stand at Doha's Hamad International Airport, and apparently the inflight entertainment satellite antenna caught fire. This was on the A321 with the tail number A7-AIB, which took its first flight in July 2010, so it's still a fairly new plane.…
Continue reading: Ouch: Qatar Airways A321 Badly Damaged In Fire At Doha Airport
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This reminds me of Swissair 111 where the entertainment system also caught on fire, except that it was inflight
They might be able to remove/reuse the engines, but I think the hull is a write-off...
The structural integrity of the hull can no longer be guaranteed, so definitely a write off.
Second time this has happened to a Qatar Airbus. A7-ABV was damaged the same way.
Write it off?
I bet you the CEO of delta will buy it, put masking tape on it and paint it to use for Delta flights to Florida
The BA 772 at LAS was repaired after that caught fire and the fuselage had similar damage. It's not impossible, but this does look worse.
@JAXBA THe BA 772 had much different damage to the aircraft than this instance. Neomax and Prebennorholm on Airliners.net would say otherwise (see it at http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1380679).
Neomax pointed out that the British 777 in Las Vegas had a different story -- because the engine caught fire (not something directly on the fuselage), only exterior panelling, the wing, and the engine needed repairs.
And Prebennorholm added that in this case, they are going to need to rewire everything from above the cabin, completely refurbish the interior, patch the fuselage back up, and ensure that anything below the 2 holes in the fuselage, be it wing box, the remainder of the fuselage, etc., are still working and up to full strength.
This is no Las Vegas, and this is certainly not like the Ethiopian 787 (just compare the damage pictures -- they're nothing alike). It could lean towards a write-off (seeing as there's a large repair bill, the aircraft isn't brand new, etc.), but who knows.
This is probably still too new for Delta to be interested, even if it is used and comes cheap. (Sarcasm).