Quote:
I was standing at the window and could see what I would call a doubler strip - or in this case two of them. On the top of the aircraft is the fuselage crown, which is the metal panels on the top. Where they met the metal along the side, there was a patch on both sides running almost the full length of the aircraft. This was in addition to the usual other double plates.
This is concerning to me because their biggest maintenance finding from the FAA (which was just a couple years ago) was they were skipping their metal fatigue inspections on many of their aircraft.
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Jetliner, you have posted two posts in the last 24 hours which are very coherant, logical explanations of why things which may appear to be something to be of concern, may in fact be routine. The San Diego landing post and this one. However, I am puzzled by the logical of the quote above. If there are more "doubler plates" on Southwest than other airlines, that would seem to suggest that Southwest are inspecting their aircraft for fatigue and addressing the problem with doubler plates. If they were continuing to skip their metal fatigue inspections, surely logically you would expect LESS doubler plates.
The reason you may see more signs of wear and tear on Southwest than other airlines may have more to do with their fleet renewal policy than safety. If Southwest work their aircraft hard, (which they do) and keep them rather than replace them and sell their older aircraft on the second hard market, then you will see more older, repaired aircraft at Southwest than some of the legacy airlines.
This is NOT a safety issue, and I think it is irresponsible to suggest that it is.