CPH-R From Denmark, joined May 2001, 4584 posts, RR: 4 Posted (2 months 3 weeks 6 days 22 hours ago) and read 2278 times:
I apologize in advance if anyone feels offended by the subject, but I'm a member of a forum dedicated to skeptics (the James Randi Educational Foundation) and I have a keen interest in trying to debunk the numerous conspiracy theories surrounding the tragedy of 9/11, especially those dealing with the aircraft. An interesting subject has come up recently, and so I was wondering if some the Tech/Ops regulars had an idea about it.
Basically, when aircraft are damaged beyond economical repair, the insurance on the particular aircraft is then cashed in and the insurance company (being the new legal owners of the airframe) then usually have whatever working bits remain turned into spares, right?
However, when very little of an aircraft remains or when the remains are in small bits and pieces, then what happens to it? Is it kept in case of a renewed investigation, smelted down or something third?
Starlionblue From Greenland, joined Feb 2004, 12881 posts, RR: 57 Reply 1, posted (2 months 3 weeks 6 days 22 hours ago) and read 2269 times:
It probably varies by country, but in general I understand the process to be thus:
1. Everything is impounded by the crash investigators. This is just like a criminal investigation.
2. Once the investigators are done, non-airline stuff is typically released first. Typically bodies first, then personal effects. These go to families.
3. Once the investigators are done with the aircraft itself, they release it in parts or as a whole. It may be that they are done with some of it but want to keep other parts for further investigation.
4. What happens next depends on "salvageability". If the aircraft can be repaired, that is done. Otherwise the owner (leasing company/ies or airline) will salvage the parts that can be used again, and sell the rest for scrap value. Note that ownership can be complex. Various parts can be owned by various leasing companies for example. This part is not very different from turning in your old car to the junkyard. They'll salvage the parts they can sell whole, then crunch it into component parts and salvage those.
I imagine insurance assessors are running around and adding their bit to the circus..
Quoting CPH-R (Thread starter): Is it kept in case of a renewed investigation, smelted down or something third?
So the answer is yes, yes and the "third" is simply "sold".
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Scbriml From Saudi Arabia, joined Jul 2003, 8416 posts, RR: 25 Reply 2, posted (2 months 3 weeks 6 days 20 hours ago) and read 2242 times:
AIRLINERS.NET CREW FORUM MODERATOR
In the case of this Kish F-50 that crashed on approach to Sharjah, the wreckage was taken to the airport and dumped. 18 months later, there was no sign of it.
Bravo1Six From Canada, joined Dec 2007, 175 posts, RR: 0 Reply 3, posted (2 months 3 weeks 6 days 16 hours ago) and read 2184 times:
Starlionblue essentially has it right, although if the insurers have paid out on a claim then they are the ones who conduct the salvage (by hiring third parties to actually do so) and are entitled to keep whatever is realized from the sale of the salvaged bits. Once the insurer pays out, they become the owners of the asset.
SlamClick From United States, joined Nov 2003, 9938 posts, RR: 72 Reply 4, posted (2 months 3 weeks 6 days 13 hours ago) and read 2137 times:
To add just a bit to what has been stated above, here are just a couple of my experiences with this.
Once officialdom and the owners and insurance companies have all had their use, the actual disposition may be a matter of convenience or economic feasibility. It is easy to think of an airliner as being made of aluminum but there are many other materials present and recycling is largely about separating materials for reprocessing. Structural damage and fire can interfere with this process and, in fact, the aluminum recovered may be very scant.
If the crash happened near a large city or airport every scrap that can be found will be removed for reasons having little to do with the value of the material. If it happens way out in the middle of nowhere a lot less effort will go into the removal. I know of at least one jet airliner that is almost complete, still at the scene of the crash. I know another that was buried at the scene. That is in the US. I know of one in the jungles of South America where the bodies were never even recovered. That crash wasn't found until years later and it remains "officially" never located. Unofficially the local military knows where it is. The Doug and Connie that collided over the Grand Canyon were left there until fairly recently when much of the wreckage was removed. There are still large bits in inaccessible places, the removal not seen as worth risking additional lives. Patsy Cline's airplane seems to have ended up in all the local barns and garages.
During the mid 1950s I don't know whether aluminum prices drove the effort or what, but many of the hundreds of military aircraft that had crashed on training flights around the western US were salvaged by a few individuals. This might not even have been legal as the US Navy "owns" its aircraft forever - at least until they agree to dispose of them. I remember seeing wreckage in the back of stakebed trucks several times when I was a kid.
As to the WTC aircraft, I'd bet that not more than a couple of tons of material remains that would be of any interest to officials. The rest went with the rubble of the buildings. I don't know what was done with any of that except that the structural steel of the buildings was recovered and put back into the supply chain. I have seen another airliner removed after it crashed and was utterly destroyed by post-crash fire. It was quietly announced that the remains would be "buried in a secret location" but I happened to see a couple of dump trucks taking the material up the road to the landfill. Yep! It went to the dump as soon as no one was looking.
Recycling an airplane can be almost as labor intensive as building one. As I mentioned, separating the materials is very important. Problem is, crashes don't separate the materials, they separate the whole into lumps with some of each. If the plane contains aluminum, fiberglas, steel, carbon fiber, titanium, bakelite, bronze, carpeting, depleted uranium (balance weights) insulated wiring, stainless steel cable, phenolic, magnesium, plexiglas and seat stuffing, it is clear that the reprocessing for each of these will be different.
The US Bureau of Mines, in one of its facilities, had a project to design a smelter that would accept a complete jet engine without disassembly and extract each of the metals off at various points in the process. That would have been a major advance in the field, but it was the victim of a budget cut before the full-scale model was built.
Some of them, like Steve Fossett's airplane are shipped off to other planets.
(That is just to get Blackbird involved in the discussion. )
Euclid From South Africa, joined Apr 2005, 296 posts, RR: 0 Reply 5, posted (2 months 3 weeks 6 days 12 hours ago) and read 2105 times:
To add a bit to one of the things said in SlamClick's post, I recall reading somewhere that the salvaged remains of the SAA B747 Helderberg was crushed and then buried in a secret location, one story being that it was buried somewhere on the grounds of Johannesburg International airport.
Soon7x7 From United States, joined May 2006, 720 posts, RR: 0 Reply 6, posted (2 months 3 weeks 6 days 11 hours ago) and read 2075 times:
Should have opened this thread yesterday as I took a licking about some post crash events and the disposal of TWA 800 remains...I found out that some are hyper sensative about such topics, but these aspects are every bit as relevent, as much as safe flight.... Taxpayers spent millions on dredging up wreckage...which 1/4 of it was reassembled as we all know...the rest was disposed of secretely in a Long Island scrap yard. About four tons of the wreckage still lays on the bottom of the ocean. That crash was as complex as it gets (criminal investigation)...stayed around for a long time and in the end the wreckage was made to dissapear...with exception of the rebuild which now serves as a NTSB classroom training feature. Also on Long Island we had the crash of Avianca 707 up in cove neck. The issues with that event were pretty clear and the wreckage lay in a parking lot next to a train station for weeks before being hauled off and scraped.
Litz From United States, joined Dec 2003, 1452 posts, RR: 0 Reply 8, posted (2 months 2 weeks 6 days 12 hours ago) and read 1528 times:
That is an interesting picture .... I believe all the other photos I've seen are from the other side ...
Is the green colored flat part middle-left of the picture the side/bottom of the wingbox itself, or the actual fuel tank? It's distended downwards, whatever it is ...
EMBQA From United States, joined Oct 2003, 7466 posts, RR: 10 Reply 9, posted (2 months 2 weeks 6 days 11 hours ago) and read 1504 times:
Quoting Litz (Reply 8): Is the green colored flat part middle-left of the picture the side/bottom of the wingbox itself, or the actual fuel tank?
Neither... it's just the fuselage skin. Areas that are covered over by fairings.. as in here...are just left in primer green.
Quoting CPH-R (Thread starter): debunk the numerous conspiracy theories surrounding the tragedy of 9/11, especially those dealing with the aircraft
What is there to debunk...? Video proof of the two planes hitting the WTC... and pictures taken just minutes after the Pentagon show pieces of a AA 757 on the front lawn. In all cases very little remained due to the contained and intense post crash fires. Also, although a plane may be big.... cut up or crashed it takes up very little space.
"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog"
Actually the NTSB only released three images to the public.They were low res and the view in the above response was the same view as the same display was also up against a well much like this shot, while it was in Calverton. Early in the investigation many other shots were recorded and have since vaporized...I never see them anywhere...
Yeh, the center fuel tank was obliterated...any structure that remained from the tank was hard to identify as tank structure. Most of the tank structure normally is bare aluminum coated with a transparent amber toned anodized finished. Any tank primer that was used was yellow,... any green is airframe primer.
Tdscanuck From Canada, joined Jan 2006, 3771 posts, RR: 28 Reply 11, posted (2 months 2 weeks 6 days 5 hours ago) and read 1443 times:
Quoting Litz (Reply 8): Is the green colored flat part middle-left of the picture the side/bottom of the wingbox itself, or the actual fuel tank?
Part of it is primed fuselage skin, but you can see the center wing box (which is also the center fuel tank) as well. The structure and fuel tank are one and the same.
Quoting Soon7x7 (Reply 10): Most of the tank structure normally is bare aluminum coated with a transparent amber toned anodized finished.
I've never seen tank structure with just alodine...always aluminum, then alodine, then fuel tank primer.
474218 From United States, joined Oct 2005, 2829 posts, RR: 3 Reply 13, posted (2 months 2 weeks 6 days 1 hour ago) and read 1396 times:
Quoting Tdscanuck (Reply 11): I've never seen tank structure with just alodine...always aluminum, then alodine, then fuel tank primer
The paint applied in the fuel tanks has to be applied to the detail parts prior to assembly, because it does not adhere to itself. Therefore, if there is any bare aluminum showing after a repair inside a fuel tank it has to be coated with sealant.
The Mil Spec for Corrosion Resistant Fuel Tank Paint is MIL-C-27725.
HangarRat From United States, joined Jul 2005, 502 posts, RR: 0 Reply 14, posted (2 months 2 weeks 5 days 12 hours ago) and read 1338 times:
Quoting SlamClick (Reply 4): I know of at least one jet airliner that is almost complete, still at the scene of the crash. I know another that was buried at the scene. That is in the US.
Which would those be, just out of curiosity? Off the top of my head, I can't think of a jet crash in the US where the site was remote and the airframe remained largely intact.
Back around the time Fossett disappeared and the searchers were turning up all those previously undiscovered wrecks, I came across a publicly available USAF document on the Web listing known, un-recovered aircraft wrecks in all 50 states. I thought it might be a source for interesting hiking/photography expeditions. Surprisingly, there is an abundance of such sites here in the Northeast. Sadly, the Web site that hosted the document appears to have removed it.
On a related note, about 10 years ago, I hiked to the site of a crash I read about while doing research at a newspaper where I was working. It was a twin Beech that crashed in a snow storm in 1979, IIRC, while carrying the New York Times to Pittsburgh.
The crash site was at the top of an unnamed ridge in a remote part of Bald Eagle State Forest in Snyder County, Pennsylvania. There was very little left at the scene. Just a stone cairn and some pieces of fuselage skin.
I've seen the inside of two center wing tanks on 747's, 707, 727's and to some degree...no two were the same...MOST of what I saw was aluminum, annodized aluminum, yellow primed,...pretty much in that order. I presume some aluminum alloys don't require coatings due to the alloy process...just guessing here...j
Tdscanuck From Canada, joined Jan 2006, 3771 posts, RR: 28 Reply 16, posted (2 months 2 weeks 5 days 4 hours ago) and read 1253 times:
Quoting Soon7x7 (Reply 15): I've seen the inside of two center wing tanks on 747's, 707, 727's and to some degree...no two were the same...MOST of what I saw was aluminum, annodized aluminum, yellow primed,...pretty much in that order.
Were these new aircraft or had they been in service for some time? The variety of coatings your describing sounds like accumulated maintenance to me. If you go to the factory and stick your head in the center box of a 737/747/767/777 it's all pretty uniform primed aluminum as far as I can see.
Quoting Soon7x7 (Reply 15): I presume some aluminum alloys don't require coatings due to the alloy process...just guessing here...j
Some don't (especially clad), but there's no real reason not to since you vastly improve the durability of the structure for a pretty modest weight/cost hike.
These were extremely high time birds...Actually though, the condition of the tank interior/wiring, etc...was pristine, like the day it was manufactured...you also have to consider the oily type environment that kerosene maintains...it probably adds to the anti corrosive properties...I recently moved and do have photos from inside the tank...not sure I can find them...however I did one better...I brought back a section for my office...it looks new...was from TWA N93108/747.
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