Coffee Crashed The Plane?
September 30, 2015 8:59 AM Subscribe
I remember a plane crash that was caused by coffee spilling onto some cracked material inside a plane...was this real?
I remember learning about this in a class about how plane crashes are not often caused by one big failure, as systems have so many backups, redundancies, etc. It was an example of how many small seemingly benign problems can cause one perfect storm that eventually causes an accident.
This is what I remember, but keep in mind some or much of it may be wrong.
An airline ran out of the kind of coffee they normally used and switched to a new one (instant coffee?). This caused the coffee to spill and leak underneath the surface it was on, where some part of the aircraft was cracked. These cracks had never been detected before because of where they were located, they weren't checked during normal maintenance. The spilled coffee interacted with something once it got through the cracks and caused a failure which crashed the plane.
Upon inspection these components were cracked in multiple planes. They (maybe modified? and) replaced them and added them onto their regular inspections.
Is this real? Did it happen? Or did I see it in a movie or dream it up? I tried to google but could not find it.
Thanks!!
I remember learning about this in a class about how plane crashes are not often caused by one big failure, as systems have so many backups, redundancies, etc. It was an example of how many small seemingly benign problems can cause one perfect storm that eventually causes an accident.
This is what I remember, but keep in mind some or much of it may be wrong.
An airline ran out of the kind of coffee they normally used and switched to a new one (instant coffee?). This caused the coffee to spill and leak underneath the surface it was on, where some part of the aircraft was cracked. These cracks had never been detected before because of where they were located, they weren't checked during normal maintenance. The spilled coffee interacted with something once it got through the cracks and caused a failure which crashed the plane.
Upon inspection these components were cracked in multiple planes. They (maybe modified? and) replaced them and added them onto their regular inspections.
Is this real? Did it happen? Or did I see it in a movie or dream it up? I tried to google but could not find it.
Thanks!!
Best answer: it was quantas. there's a reference here (search page for coffee). hopefully, given that, someone can come up with a better result.
(power outage, not crash).
edit: here's the original comment on risks digest that has more details:
(power outage, not crash).
edit: here's the original comment on risks digest that has more details:
Qantas Flight QF2 from London To Sydney via BKK (Bangkok) (a Boeing 747-400) suffered a total AC electrical loss 15 minutes before landing at BKK on 8 January 2008.... Inspection of the aircraft showed that water from the first class galley had overflowed down onto the sub-floor E racks which contained the GCU's (controllers for engine generators) and BPCU (backup PCU) All controllers were disabled resulting in total loss of AC power.... The fiberglass drip shield above the E rack had a crack that allowed water to drip through. ... Qantas has changed from 'pillow' style coffee bags to ground coffee machines - based on cost saving. This results in the possibility of coffee grounds being dumped in the galley sinks.posted by andrewcooke at 9:07 AM on September 30, 2015 [8 favorites]
Best answer: Here's a follow-up story to the initial one that covers a few instances of issues like this. I was able to find it searching for Qantas, so thanks, andrewcooke!
posted by limeonaire at 9:10 AM on September 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by limeonaire at 9:10 AM on September 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
Response by poster: Wow thanks you guys are awesome! And so quick!
posted by sillysally at 9:16 AM on September 30, 2015
posted by sillysally at 9:16 AM on September 30, 2015
There is a movie from the early 1960s where nearly this exact thing occurred. Just mentioning the title here would be an insta-spoiler, so I've anonymised the links below.
[This Movie] is based very loosely upon [Book With The Same Title] -- a memoir about the early days of commercial aviation. The film has some legit 1960s star power and was nominated for an Oscar for B&W Cinematography.
Synopsis: An airline executive investigates the crash of a commercial airliner that killed the pilot -- an old friend -- and everyone else aboard save one, a flight attendant. After wandering LA talking to everyone who knew the pilot and living through some flashbacks, they decide to re-enact the events leading up to the crash.
The stew, mostly recovered from her injuries, brings in coffee for the flight crew at T-minus Exactly The Same Time As Before and Wot-Ho! the pilot spills his coffee all over the center console to much sparking and smoking, as it runs down through the gaps in the cowling into the plane's vitals. Given the quality of 1960s airline coffee, this seems like a lucky break. Still, for whatever reason, this time they don't crash, the test crew is safe, and the dead pilot is exonerated. The End.
Bosley Crowther, writing contemporaneously for the New York Times, not only hated it, he included in his review a fatal spoiler. Considering that the coffee angle was a plot twist in the last five minutes of the film, just giving it away in a newspaper seems pretty mean. I suppose the modern etiquette of spoilers hadn't been developed yet, but still. . . .
They used to show this film on late-night teevy all the time in the 1960s and 70s. Later generations demonstrated little patience for either adult melodrama or B&W movies, so it's faded into obscurity, but I remember it fondly.
posted by Herodios at 10:08 AM on October 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
[This Movie] is based very loosely upon [Book With The Same Title] -- a memoir about the early days of commercial aviation. The film has some legit 1960s star power and was nominated for an Oscar for B&W Cinematography.
Synopsis: An airline executive investigates the crash of a commercial airliner that killed the pilot -- an old friend -- and everyone else aboard save one, a flight attendant. After wandering LA talking to everyone who knew the pilot and living through some flashbacks, they decide to re-enact the events leading up to the crash.
The stew, mostly recovered from her injuries, brings in coffee for the flight crew at T-minus Exactly The Same Time As Before and Wot-Ho! the pilot spills his coffee all over the center console to much sparking and smoking, as it runs down through the gaps in the cowling into the plane's vitals. Given the quality of 1960s airline coffee, this seems like a lucky break. Still, for whatever reason, this time they don't crash, the test crew is safe, and the dead pilot is exonerated. The End.
Bosley Crowther, writing contemporaneously for the New York Times, not only hated it, he included in his review a fatal spoiler. Considering that the coffee angle was a plot twist in the last five minutes of the film, just giving it away in a newspaper seems pretty mean. I suppose the modern etiquette of spoilers hadn't been developed yet, but still. . . .
They used to show this film on late-night teevy all the time in the 1960s and 70s. Later generations demonstrated little patience for either adult melodrama or B&W movies, so it's faded into obscurity, but I remember it fondly.
posted by Herodios at 10:08 AM on October 1, 2015 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
"Then you lower your tray table. Right in the middle is a nasty, dirty coffee ring stain. Yuck. Bad enough that you’ve got to get someone to clean this up, but it calls into question the cleanliness of the rest of the plane, and even how well the engines are inspected and maintained! Your impression of the airline so carefully cultivated to this point is dashed. By something as seemingly innocuous as a coffee stain."
posted by dws at 9:01 AM on September 30, 2015