Airbus cockpit window departs.
 

Chinese airliner makes emergency landing after cockpit window falls out nearly sucking co-pilot out of cabin | South China Morning Post

F/O partially blown out, cockpit damaged.

interview with Capt on PPrune.

https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/...d-blowout.html

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/socie...cockpit-window

Wow. Didn't know that still happened. I'd be curious to learn if it was a design/mfg flaw or some MX issue.

Yes it shouldn't take long to find out what cause the failure. I read up on the British Airways similar incident in 1990, that was caused by bolts of the wrong size diameter (undersized). The installing mech claimed that he installed they same size bolts that he took out, which turned to be true, although they were not the proper size called for by manufacturer.

This China incident was followed by visual flight over high terrain with sub freezing temps and no NAV/auto.

Awesome job of flying it back safely by the Capt. & crew.

I'd guess mx. No Bus has ever had an unexplained windscreen blowout before.

The bent MCP was pretty impressive. :eek:

Airline claims no maintenance was done on the window since delivered from Airbus in 2011.

Wow...that is surprising (and more than a little scary).

Maybe we're dealing with various definitions of "maintenance". Perhaps inspections, cleaning, etc. aren't viewed as "maintenance" by this airline and they're referring more to non-routine repairs. How much upkeep does a forward, fixed window really need unless something goes wrong with it?

Yeah, that’s my point...unless mis-installed by mx...what else can cause a blowout like that?

I thought you were expressing concern that a forward window could go 7-ish years without "maintenance".

Perhaps mis-installed during initial construction at Airbus?

How the hell do you mis-install a window? You either use the right bolts or you don't. Even if you didn't torque them right the failure mode would be slow leak not blowout.