Fracture Surface News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Electric and a french company named snekma. it powered the 737 fleet and also a large percentage of the air bus a-320 family. >> those are obviously very widely used planes. are they likely to do some kind of mechanical check on all of these engine types? >> until we know what caused it, if this was just a one rogue carbon disc or compression disc. it had been dropped or something like that, then it would not require a fleet inspection. so they need to understand first what happened and they'll be able to do that reasonably quickly with the metallurgist looking at the fracture surface. >> coul...

On a number and there's no agreement on the policy rider. >> i have confidence we can get this done. we're not there yet. >> if it's shut down it's because harry reid refuses to sit and negotiate. >> i understand how bad congress looks from the inside because i'm one of them. >> jt said if he could speak to all of us in washington, he would tell you that all of this political grandstanding has effects, and it trickles down to normal, everyday americans. >> if they stopped our federal paychecks it would have a devastating affect on us. >> it's not fair they get to choose how and when stuff does...

Hole is larger than first reported. >> the fracture area is five feet by one foot wide. a preliminary onsite inspection reveals preexisting fatigue along the entire fracture surface. >> reporter: the ntsb is cutting out the fracture surface so it can be more closely examined. they say they see no sign of faulty maintenance. >> we have no indications that something was actually missed in an inspection, something that could have been detected that wasn't detected. >> reporter: the plane's flight recorders are in washington. no one was seriously injured when the hole burst open at 36,000 feet fri...

Spread cracking across this entire fracture surface. >> reporter: damages along one of the lap joints not detected in regular maintenance checks. >> what the issue is is that along this particular lap joint, it was not known in the industry that this was an area on airplanes of this number of cycles that those lap joints should be inspected. >> reporter: boeing, the maker of the 737 300, is drafting a service bulletin to require special inspections of the lap joints in all of the 737s with comparable landing and takeoff cycles. southwest airlines has returned 19 of the grounded 737 300s to ser...

A preliminary on site examination reveals pre-existing fatigue along the entire fracture surface. >> the question this morning is did southwest ignore those warning signs on these planes? joining us now is the former managing director of the ntsb. good morning to you. >> good morning. >> do you believe they ignored warning signs? >> well, we won't know until we go back over their records. i mean, this plane went through a check less than a year ago which is a very comprehensive tear down and rebuild. and these kinds of fractures or skin cracks are supposed to be identified and fixed so we'll g...