Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 Max sustains 'substantial' damage from 'Dutch roll' incident

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: USA Today via Yahoo!

Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 Max sustains 'substantial' damage from 'Dutch roll' incident

Zach Wichter
Updated Fri, June 14, 2024 at 3:27 PM EDT
3 min read

A Southwest Airlines jet was damaged during a flight last month after it experienced an unusual maneuver called a Dutch roll.

Flight 746 was en route from Phoenix to Oakland on May 25 and flying at about 34,000 feet when the incident occurred.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the plane sustained “substantial” damage to its tail section as a result of the maneuver, although it was able to complete the flight. The damage was only discovered during a post-flight inspection. The rudder’s standby power control unit (PCU) was damaged. The standby PCU is a backup system in case the main rudder power unit becomes inoperable. No injuries were reported as a result of the maneuver.

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What is a Dutch roll?

A Dutch roll is an airplane maneuver that involves simultaneous yaw (side-to-side motion across a flat horizontal plane) and roll (see-saw motion over a horizontal plane).

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Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/southwest-airlines-boeing-737-max-154528552.html

[Oopsie Daisy]

1. Bad airline? Bad planes? --- I guess the pilots did what was necessary.

[ArkansasDemocrat1]

2. Usually there is an automatic yaw damper

It is concerning that this happened. They'd solved the dutch roll problem back in the 50s

https://www.boldmethod.com/learn-to-fly/aerodynamics/dutch-roll/

[Igel]

5. There probably was.

These are rare. Wiki has a list, and they're random in occurrence.

Oddball set of wind patterns? Controller off line for some reason? Pilots not realizing what's happening as it starts to happen?

Were it a design flaw, you'd expect these to be more common for a given make/model of plane.

(I'm learning some fluid dynamics now and might just use this as an example come next school year.)

[ArkansasDemocrat1]

10. Probably defective or deleted software

I wouldn't put anything past pre-bankruptcy Boeing

[paleotn]

3. Yikes! That's rugged. Not surprised it caused damage.

They're not designed for "aerobatics."

[canetoad]

4. Video to help visualize

A Dutch roll. I'm familiar with the terms yaw and roll - but on boats. This looks distinctly uncomfortable.
Edit for blocks Youtube url.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

6. Substantial damage? A standby power control unit?

To me, this sounds like a simple fix: Pull the standby power control unit, slide in a new one, hook up the wire connectors. Easy-peasey.

It does seem ridiculous that the cockpit voice data recorder over-writes the medium after two hours. Get a bigger storage drive, guys, they're cheap at Best Buy.

Yes, my knowledge of aircraft maintenance is limited to "righty-tighty, lefty-loosey".

[Wonder Why]

7. I hope the Dutch roll tasted good - especially if it had Irish butter on it.

Dutch Roll (def: ) - An airplane maneuver where each pilot has to pay their own cost for the damage.

[kimbutgar]

8. We flew from SFO to Phoenix last Saturday on one of those 737 max and there was a slight bit of back and forth

Dutch roll that made me nervous but then went smooth. Flying back home today on the same plane hope it’s a smooth flight!

[IronLionZion]

9. I blame the Dutch for this. Time to invade the Netherlands