Unreliable commercial aircraft

[lovejoy0120]

Following the recent emergency landing of the DC-9 at Chicago Airport I would like to say that DC aircraft are unreliable once and for all.I've said it before in "Whats the most unreliable commercial aircraft ?".The nose landing gear wouldn't work.In another one of my questions someone replied :"If a plane landed safely because of an emergency it wouldn't be on "Air Crash Investigation"

1.On Aloha Flight 243 the plane lost the top front section of its body in mid-air (plane now a convertible) it landed safely at Honolulu Internbational even though there was no oxygen supply.
2.On an Air Transit flight from Canada to Lisbon the fuel started leaking.Stupidly even though Airbus tell you not to cross feed when a fuel leak is occuring ,they cross fed fuel ! This caused the plane to run out of fuel 130 miles from the Azores.Fortunately the 2 pilots managed to land the plane at a military base in the Azores.

So there you don't have to have died to be on "Air Crash Investigation".

[BillyNoMates]

And the basis of your statement that the DC9 is an unreliable aircraft is ..... ?

Nervous flyer perhaps ?

[Toureman]

Are you an aircraft accident investigater then to make such an authorative statement?

[Clanad]

Strangely, the seemingly randomly chosen examples of incidents are, neither, McDonnell-Douglas aircraft. The DC-9series aircraft was first certificated for commercial use in 1965 and has been, along with the Boeing 737 series one of the most successful and dependable aircraft in the world. The Aloha flight referenced brought to light the problem of aging aircraft and from this experience has come new and improved maintenance practices for dealing with high time aircraft. The Air Transat flight revealed an anomaly in the fuel system of the Airbus A-330 caused by chafing of a fuel line on a hydraulic pump. Knowledge gained from both incidents has greatly increased aviation safety. Over 2,500 of these fine aircraft were manufactured with most either still flying or safely retired and residing in the desert.

[tomtech]

about four years ago, upon landing our plane slowed down ok but seemed to go on and on in a straight line until we hit a load of bumps, the brakes were slammed on and we came to an abrupt halt. the plane had failed to turn off the runway. nothing was said and eventually we were towed into the airport by one of those tugs. we were later informed that the steering had failed, or the pilot was asleep. does that make that plane unreliable? i think not. things do fail from time to time and could be down to human error. if a plane got a puncture on landing and crashed does that make the plane unreliable or the tyre or is it just one of those things you have to accept?i think overall planes are very safe but you have to bear in mind it is a machine just like a car, and you know how often they break down. if you are really that worried then maybe you shouldnt fly. ps, was anyone else here on that same flight? you will remember it well if you were.

[jake-the-peg]

This site (sorry about all their pop-ups) http://www.airdisaster.com/statistics/
Has a table of the safest planes based on incidents involving one or more passenger fatalities per number of flights and they rate the DC-9 as number 9.

Of course that's only where fatalities were involved and I can't vouch for the accuracy of the statistics but it's interesting none the less

[lovejoy0120]

Toureman,No I wouldn't consider a career in some form of aviation if I was a nervous flyer.You can see however why I do feel much more nervous in an ATR72 than an Airbus A321.

[lovejoy0120]

Last year I think ,two DC aircraft crashed within 2 weeks of each other.Now who wouldn't be suspicious of DC aircraft if they heard that ?

[lovejoy0120]

Ok,Ok so the DC aircraft crash because they're aging (Valujet flew a 27 yr old DC aircraft) and because of miser like airlines that put economy ahead of safety.But I still worry about going on aircraft with low production rates like the Russian planes.Could someone please give me a list of these and the TRULY unreliable aircraft.

Thanks.

[lord molly]

love joy:

the antinov's have to take of with only half power applied, any more power and the wing mounts are in danger of shattering. i'd say that is a dodgey a/c, wouldn't you?