Almost a Crash - Full Scale!

[BAIR]

A pilot flew his plane for two hours without realising he was missing half a wing.

His passengers - two flight engineers on their way to repair a Boeing 767 - also failed to spot it had been ripped off, taking a fuel tank with it.

Their Cessna 210's wing was split in two when it hit a tree on take-off from an airstrip near Shannon in Ireland, reports the Mirror.

The pilot later said he heard a bang but thought he had just hit a small bird.

He only realised what had happened when he spotted his back-up fuel tank gauge was on empty as he flew over the Channel on the way to Portugal.

He put out a Mayday call and landed at Jersey airport.

A spokesman there said last night: "We were amazed it managed to fly as long as it had. It was in a real state.

"The pilot was the most shocked as he had not realised the extent of the damage while he was flying."

[Grug - American Neanderthal]

Well you know, sometimes you dont notice when the minor things come off.

[jetmex]

Eric, I was thinking the same thing. How in the hell do you not notice half a wing is missing? Especially (in that airplane) when it's right outside the cockpit window.....

Kinda reinforces my feelings about engineers, too.... ;D

[RonMiller]

The whole story must not be out on this. I would have to think that loosing part of wing would make at the very least a trim change as lift would be reduced and maybe drag from parts being shredded and not streamlined.

?lol and they were on their way to repair a 767. Hmmmm

[Galvin]

I think that the part where the pilot was on drugs or got ripped to the tits on a jug of poteen was left out. I have seen a couple of airplanes that have had wing damage and were flown to safe landings that were anything but benign in their flight characteristics.

The first was a Cessna 172 that an acquaintance of mine owned at San Fernando airport back in the late sixties. He had been washing it and went up to dry it off. On the way back into the field he hit a seagull and bashed in the leading edge all the way back to the front spar on the left wing at about 2/3rds span. He tried a stall to see how it would handle and nearly lost it. He managed to get it on our little 2700' strip but just barely after coming over the fence at over 100MPH.

The other was a new private pilot in a rented Piper Cherokee who flew some of his buddies out to the desert for breakfast and somehow managed to hit a hangar with a wing and really ding it. The wing had a dent in it that was diamond shaped when viewed from the front and also went nearly back to the front spar.

The worst part about this one was that he and his three friends then climbed back into the airplane and flew it back to Van Nuys, which closed the airport for his arrival because he was reporting that the airplane was barely controllable. Brilliant.