Shocking photo: What object caused this much damage to Air China's Boeing 757?

[theaviationwriter]

Here’s an interesting photo that been doing the rounds online, apparently taken after an Air China Boeing 757-200 was involved in a recent incident.

According to The Aviation Herald, the aircraft (registration B-2856) was performing flight CA-4307 from Chengdu to Guangzhou on 4th June 2013, when “a large bang was heard from the nose section of the aircraft and the aircraft performance worsened”.

The Boeing 757 was returned to Chengdu for safety reasons and post flight examinations confirmed that the aircraft collided with a foreign object… but what type of object would cause this much damage?

More details and photos here: http://www.theaviationwriter.com/201...age-photo.html

[fungus]

Hard to tell from that photo but it may not have hit anything at all and may have suffered a fatigue crack or something and simply stove in at high speed/pressure. You'd only need a pinhole at the pressures that are applied at altutude. I suppose we just have to wait for the official report.

There's not a lot of support in that area of the foreward pressure bulkhead. Apparently this is deliberate for the benefit of the radar in the nose. Thanks for bringing up the subject, I hadnt been aware of this information previously.

http://www.google.com/patents/US20070164152

gregg

[DizzyIreland]

Interesting. Hard to tell what could have possibly caused it, but I did enjoy one of the speculations in the comments section of the article. A poster thought it might be Iron Man.... who knows?