United A320 Had Accident, Flew Seven More Times Before Being Grounded

Questioning who finally noticed the damage? Another pilot? Or someone else just said " Hey look at that" ?

It flew 7 flights no issue, good enough to put back into service

Sarcasm doesn't travel well over the internet, so we're going to assume you aren't half as stupid as this comment makes you out to be.

Ask JAL and China Airlines how well ignoring a tailstrike goes.

Yes, you would think a member of the flight deck crew would be performing a walk-around before one of the next *seven* departures and notice the damage.

first, this accident represents a failure of multiple people and workgroups at United in recognizing and reporting this incident. Unless United can provide documentation that the pilots failed to report, then there is a systemic problem w/ internal controls. Even the flight attendants that sat in the rear jumpseats are bound to have known that there was a hard landing and likely could have heard the tail strike the runway. Rampers should have seen the damage; WN rampers are required to do aircraft checks.
Second, there is no assuming that aircraft damage has been reported. It either is documented in the logbook and maintenance has signed off on it or it has not been reported.
Third, the plane was not involved in a major accident because the A320 is built as well as it is - which is not elevating it above any other type of aircraft.

There has been a frightening increase in erosion of the mechanisms that have allowed the US aviation system to be as safe as it is. In light of other United pilot related operational incidents, you have to wonder how long it will be for the FAA to open an investigation of United - if that isn't happening already.

Yeah I wasn't being serious

Human after human failed to notice or report the situation.
A chain of human errors. Something simply preventable by removing humans from the problem.

Not a fun read when you’re at a gate and boarding a UA flight in an hour lol.

Absolutely not the same as it is ok for flight .

JAL 123. Tailstrike damaged the aft pressure bulkhead, leading to an eventual explosive decompression, blowing the vertical stabilizer off the aircraft and damaging all four of the aircraft’s hydraulic systems (747). Flight crashed 32 minutes later, 4 survivors rescued.

You’d think a tailstrike would at least warrant attention for the aft pressure bulkhead. Hell, when I worked at Lufthansa we had an A340-600 land too hard. For *that* they cancelled the flight and pulled the black box to send to Frankfurt for analysis. Hard landings would happen more often than tailstrikes…they should have looked into this on day 1.

The only remotely reasonable explanation for this would be that much like when you drop a glass and get a small hairline fracture in it, the initial tail strike damage wasn’t that visible? Then the pounding of repeated landings worsened it and made it more visible?

Any other explanation would imply either an intentional cover up or a need to fire some grossly incompetent pilots and maintenance staff.

Here are the pilot statements if that helps. For what it's worth, I find the captain's and FO's decision to classify it as a "very firm" landing instead of a "hard" landing understandable. Scroll down to "Flight Crew Statements" https://data.ntsb.gov/Docket?ProjectID=106964

Basically, based on discussions with the FAs and how the landing ended up, they classified it as a firm landing not a hard landing and did not suspect tail damage. There's also this from the first officer:

"I attempted to perform a post-flight walk-around, however, I was not allowed down to the ramp, as it was an international return flight and U.S. Customs had the plane cordoned off for inspection."

Doesn't explain subsequent misses, but could explain why nothing after this specific flight from these two.

Same here, except I'm flying round trip with UA today, and this is my first United flight in over a decade.

also, does not explain why the co-pilot did not alert someone that there was reason to inspect the aircraft and allow the people that could access the aircraft do so at the appropriate time.
Walking away is inexcusable.

It was the repair that was wrong and faulty.
Not the tailstrike.

Maybe the FO did, or at least noted it somewhere. I don't know what the procedures would call for, but even if he didn't I don't get how multiple crews missed the damage. Could have been as few as one more crew or 3-4 more crews depending on how that plane was scheduled. Pilots don't want to die and aren't idiots, so not sure how possible multiple of them missed it?

I would hope that internally there's a review on that part.

Yet United wil probably not have its safety rating reduced for this. For a foreign airline it would have been the first reaction.

Maybe a nitpicking - but I believe in this case tailstrike should be classified as incident?

This is incredibly offensive and racist. @Ben, this person should be banned from posting - at the very least the comment should be taken down.

@David H, geez take a deep breath

koggerj you’re a disgrace.

Why take it down? Let it stand, to showcase another mediocre whiteguy mad because he has a tiny D and even smaller job prospects.

I agree with Heathrow. Let the world see how the mediocre white men feel threatened.

Agreed, please remove this.

It is possibly that from the flight deck the tail strike went unnoticed. The biggest shocker is no one during any walk arounds saw the 19 foot abrasion. Flight crews are required to complete a pre flight physical inspection.