Photo Gallery of the Comet Disaster#
By Hisham Eltaher
- Heltaher/
- Systems and Innovation/
- Cracked Sky: The Price of the Jet Age/
- Cracked Sky – Part 4: Photo Gallery of the Comet Disaster/
Cracked Sky – Part 4: Photo Gallery of the Comet Disaster
·7 words·1 min·
Systems and Innovation
De Havilland Comet 1
Metal Fatigue
Pressurization Cycles
Stress Concentration
Square Windows
ADF Windows
Calcutta Crash (G-ALYV)
Elba Crash (G-ALYP)
Naples Crash (G-ALYY)
Water Tank Testing (Farnborough)
G-ALYU Test Failure
Prototype G-ALVG
Cold-Working
Proof Testing (2P)
Safe-Life Design Philosophy
Fail-Safe Design
Damage Tolerance
BCAR D3-7
Institutional Denial
Weather Attribution Fallacy
Stress Raisers
Aluminum Alloy DTD 546
Catastrophic Failure
Fracture Face Analysis
Redundant Load Paths
Rip-Stop Design
Aviation Safety Regulation
Systems Thinking
Disaster Analysis
Technological History
Design and Innovation
Table of Contents
The Complexity Cliff - This article is part of a series.
Part 1:
This Article
The Complexity Cliff - This article is part of a series.
Part 1:
This Article
Related
Cracked Sky – Part 1: Silent Skies: The Sudden Fall of the Comet
·2062 words·10 mins
Systems and Innovation
De Havilland Comet 1
Metal Fatigue
Pressurization Cycles
Stress Concentration
Square Windows
ADF Windows
Calcutta Crash (G-ALYV)
Elba Crash (G-ALYP)
Naples Crash (G-ALYY)
Water Tank Testing (Farnborough)
G-ALYU Test Failure
Prototype G-ALVG
Cold-Working
Proof Testing (2P)
Safe-Life Design Philosophy
Fail-Safe Design
Damage Tolerance
BCAR D3-7
Institutional Denial
Weather Attribution Fallacy
Stress Raisers
Aluminum Alloy DTD 546
Catastrophic Failure
Fracture Face Analysis
Redundant Load Paths
Rip-Stop Design
Aviation Safety Regulation
Systems Thinking
Disaster Analysis
Technological History
Design and Innovation
An analysis of the three catastrophic break-ups in Calcutta, Elba, and Naples, and the institutional tendency to blame the weather when the machine is failing.
Cracked Sky – Part 2: Cornered: When Geometry Became a Weapon
·1641 words·8 mins
Systems and Innovation
De Havilland Comet 1
Metal Fatigue
Pressurization Cycles
Stress Concentration
Square Windows
ADF Windows
Calcutta Crash (G-ALYV)
Elba Crash (G-ALYP)
Naples Crash (G-ALYY)
Water Tank Testing (Farnborough)
G-ALYU Test Failure
Prototype G-ALVG
Cold-Working
Proof Testing (2P)
Safe-Life Design Philosophy
Fail-Safe Design
Damage Tolerance
BCAR D3-7
Institutional Denial
Weather Attribution Fallacy
Stress Raisers
Aluminum Alloy DTD 546
Catastrophic Failure
Fracture Face Analysis
Redundant Load Paths
Rip-Stop Design
Aviation Safety Regulation
Systems Thinking
Disaster Analysis
Technological History
Design and Innovation
A technical deep dive into the 1954 water tank experiments and how the squarish windows of the Comet turned air pressure into a structural saw.
Cracked Sky – Part 3: The Illusion of Strength: The Flawed Tests That Hid the Truth
·1678 words·8 mins
Systems and Innovation
De Havilland Comet 1
Metal Fatigue
Pressurization Cycles
Stress Concentration
Square Windows
ADF Windows
Calcutta Crash (G-ALYV)
Elba Crash (G-ALYP)
Naples Crash (G-ALYY)
Water Tank Testing (Farnborough)
G-ALYU Test Failure
Prototype G-ALVG
Cold-Working
Proof Testing (2P)
Safe-Life Design Philosophy
Fail-Safe Design
Damage Tolerance
BCAR D3-7
Institutional Denial
Weather Attribution Fallacy
Stress Raisers
Aluminum Alloy DTD 546
Catastrophic Failure
Fracture Face Analysis
Redundant Load Paths
Rip-Stop Design
Aviation Safety Regulation
Systems Thinking
Disaster Analysis
Technological History
Design and Innovation
An investigation into the flawed testing protocols that masked the Comet’s vulnerability and how a single prototype’s survival doomed the production fleet.