Page 12 - Tail Strike News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Plane stable is fished out of the bay 100 miles away from the mountain. >> it was quite a distance from the crash site. it departed the plane early. you ask the question what could cause a decompression, control problems and the loss of a vertical fin. >> investigators learn there was previous damage to the aft pressure bulkhead. that is the structure at the back of the cab than keeps the cabin pressurized. it was cracked seven years before the crash. when the plane's tail dragged along the runway in a tail strike. >> the tail strike can happen on the runway or it can occur on landing where th...

Or maintenance related? >> it pain meese to say this but i think we are finding more and more where it is repair related. >> there were at least two suicides in the wake of the incident. japan airlines employee who was working with victims' families and an inspection engineer who issued a certificate of air worthyness for the doomed plane a of the 1978 tail strike. to this day, jal 123 remains the deadliest single aircraft accident in the history of aviation. we have seen the disastrous results of airplanes not properly repaired, maintained or inspected. japan airline flight 123, american flig...

>> quite a distance from the crash site. so they gnaw it had departed the airplane earlier. now you begin to ask the question -- what could cause a decompression, control problems and loss of a vertical fin. >> reporter: looking at the plane's maintenance history investigators learned there was previous damage to the aft pressure bulkhead. that's the structure at the back of a cabin that keeps the cabin pressurized. it was cracked seven years before the crash. with the mane's tail accidentally dragged along the runway, in an incident known as a tail strike. >> the tail strike can occur in one ...

Aft bulkhead. it was cracked seven years before the crash. when the plane's tail accidently dragged along the runway in an incident known as a tail strike. >> a tail strike can occur on takeoff where the airplane is on the run way and beginning its climb or on landing when the tail is in a nose high attitude, either way it's going to create damage. >> the repair is problematic. the structure is so large, 15 feet across, the airplane was built around it originally. to make the fix, boeing removes the skin of the airplane around the bulkhead, replaces the bulkhead's damaged lower half. then rein...

Maintenance quality and we don't have any of that information yet. so the russian civil authority will certainly be looking at the maintenance records of the airplane to see if there had been any previous problems with it. there are some reports that are not yet confirmed that this particular airplane had a tail strike earlier at some point in its career, but that's several years ago. that probably doesn't mean anything. it was a bit of history. but beyond that, that's all we have at this point. >> john cox, thank you so much for that. right now we'll turn to our senior -- former senior britis...