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A personal note on the 737's. They just aren't put together well. I'm not referring to the current fiasco with Spirit Aerosystems either. The plugs to stretch the fuselage Boeing installed are weak. Look at pictures of runway over-runs on the NG and higher 737's; The fuselage cracks open at the fuselage plugs very commonly, and at very low ground speeds.
Contrast that to Airbus's 4-wheeling excursions where the fuselage stays intact. With respect to one of our flights in PHL which "rejected" takeoff at -ahem- about 200' AGL, and wheelbarrowed and bounced it's way to a stop, that fuselage took a massive beating starting with a blow to the nose, and remained intact.
Food for though....
I would love to see the official data on that. To me it sounds like you are picking and choosing what overruns produced fuselage breakups on 737s while conveniently ignoring the breakups that have happened with A320 series, of which have happened as well. The PHL airborne reject landed straight ahead, albeit hard - I would venture to guess that a 737 would have fared just as well given that it was a straight landing on flat ground. Kind of like the TACA 737 that dead sticked onto a levee near MSY back in 1989.. barely a scratch. Same with the Ural Air A321s that dead sticked into flat fields. Originally Posted by airbusflieger
A personal note on the 737's. They just aren't put together well. I'm not referring to the current fiasco with Spirit Aerosystems either. The plugs to stretch the fuselage Boeing installed are weak. Look at pictures of runway over-runs on the NG and higher 737's; The fuselage cracks open at the fuselage plugs very commonly, and at very low ground speeds.
Contrast that to Airbus's 4-wheeling excursions where the fuselage stays intact. With respect to one of our flights in PHL which "rejected" takeoff at -ahem- about 200' AGL, and wheelbarrowed and bounced it's way to a stop, that fuselage took a massive beating starting with a blow to the nose, and remained intact.
Food for though....
Here's a fact - fuselages break up when they exceed their design limits. That has happened on every aircraft in history. What may be skewing your reasoning is the fact that there are definitely a lot more 737 overruns worldwide than Airbus aircraft, which is due to the 737's much higher landing speed as well as it being a more hands on aircraft to fly that doesn't have some of the protections Airbus has. So with a lot more 737 overruns you're probably going to statistically see a higher percentage of fuselage breakups.
I get it, you're not a 737 fan but if you're going to throw out claims that 737s are not well put together due to fuselage breakups that don't similarly affect Airbus aircraft with the same impact forces, you're going to have to substantiate that with proof, otherwise it just appears to be a biased opinion.
Edit: I'm not an Airbus hater, in fact I think they are amazing aircraft. I just like to rip on my buds that "fly" it :-)
Edit #2: Boeing, the company, is a disgrace these days, given the Max issues. However, IMHO the 737NG series is one of the last best Boeings ever built after the 757, which were built before Boeing started its downward spiral.