My great grandpa was one of the passengers who died in the last comet plane explosion in the 50’s, this was found at my grandma’s after she passed recently.

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gochesse@reddit

And this is why all pressurized planes have circular windows now

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It was this specific flight that resulted in the grounding of the worldwide Comet fleet for almost 5 years at the very dawn of the jet set, and pretty much cemented American manufacturers as the gobal airline leader. By the time the investigation into the Comet had concluded and they were cleared to fly and deliver new airframes, the Comet was now competing with the brand new 707 and DC-8, and de Havilland never really recovered.

It's a terrible albeit interesting part of pioneering aviation history to have been a part of.

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martinjh99@reddit

I wonder if this had never happened and the Comet was good from the start would the world be flying on British planes and not Boeing...

Interesting What If for sure...

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Kanyiko@reddit

If the Comet had been good from the start and this never happened:

- The next batch of Comet deliveries would have gone on. These would have included the Comet 2 (orders by BOAC, Canadian Pacific, UAT, Air France, British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines, Japan Air Lines, Linea Aeropostal Venezolana and Panair Do Brasil) and Comet 3 (orders by BOAC, Air India and Pan Am) The former would have entered service in 1954, the latter in 1955.

- The Bristol Britannia would not have been stuck in development hell. Following the Comet crashes the Britannia was submitted to a very stringent development program which held back production and delivery for years and left it competing with the Boeing 707 and DC-8 instead of the Douglas DC-7C and Lockheed L-1649 Starliner.

- The British government would not have lost faith in British airliner projects. This might have saved Vickers V-1000 which would have been a strong successor to the De Havilland Comet and a strong competitor to the Boeing 707 and DC-8. It would also have seen the Vickers VC-10 receive strong support instead of strong opposition from government sources - the VC-10 was killed more by the British itself than by its competitors.

- And most importantly: Boeing and Douglas would have been left at their own devices to learn the lessons the Comet disasters taught the world. It might not have been the Comet - but the Boeing 707 or DC-8 which ended up suffering the structural issues that were uncovered by the series of Comet disasters.

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MandolinMagi@reddit

Boeing would absolutely have been a major player, they and Douglas were already major players in the airliner world.

And the British would have killed their aviation industry in a few decades anyways. There's a reason airliner manufacturing is just Boeing and Airbus these days, nobody else has the money.

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nqthomas@reddit

You forgot Brazil. The E195E2 and the E185 are selling faster than they can be made

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StartersOrders@reddit

Oddly enough, quite a bit of Airbus is British.

It’s an odd company.

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Danno_001@reddit

Nah. The Brits would screw it up another way. Just look at their car industry. Triumph, Jaguar as examples.

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Ecthelion-O-Fountain@reddit

British engineering is delightfully wacky, but it’s generally not great.

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Baffled_Beagle@reddit

The Spitfire and Mosquito would like a word with you . . .

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Ecthelion-O-Fountain@reddit

Mosquito is cool af you got me there. Spitfire I don’t know enough about. But I’ll accept that if you put a gun to an Englishman’s head he can make something that works.

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lovestobitch-@reddit

I’ve so wanted a land rover but those cars were shit too. Also expensive. Good marketing now though.

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Ecthelion-O-Fountain@reddit

I mean, they looked dope as hell and they’re pretty good on initial quality, but they do not hold up. British engineering to make me summed up with “let’s make something 30% more complicated for a hypothetical 5% improvement in performance and efficiency. “ I just don’t understand why that doesn’t work more often /s.

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Straight_Loan8271@reddit

Wouldn't be British instead of Boeing. Maybe British instead of Embraer or Bombardier at least as far as complete aircraft goes.

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brigadoom@reddit

Boeing and Douglas had huge domestic customers in a huge domestic market for the B707 and the DC-8.

And they had big US defence contracts too, directly or indirectly.

Tne Comet might have done a lot better without these accidents, but it, and the UK aircraft manufacturers were never going to win agains the US competition

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ArsErratia@reddit

They might have done well as Regional Jet manufacturers, though. Think more Embraer instead of Boeing.

Well, they did, actually. The VC-10 and BAC-111 are solid aircraft.

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Far-Yellow9303@reddit

The UK just isn't large enough to support that sort of industry. What we'd likely see instead is the UK specialise into advanced aircraft assemblies then sell them to other countries like the US or France... hey wait a minute

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Ecthelion-O-Fountain@reddit

Not likely no.

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lovestobitch-@reddit

Wiki indicated three or four broke up due to structural issues.

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KOOCING@reddit

Apparently, they punched rivets through the skin in a manner similar to pushing a pencil through paper. It created fractures in the skin around the rivets, rather than a clean hole.

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kristina_42@reddit

American airliners would have dominated anyway for the same reason you don’t see fokker and sud aviation around

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zeissikon@reddit

You forget the Caravelle, sold everywhere in the western world …which gave rise to Airbus with the Concorde.

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neoBarr01@reddit (OP)

He was actually one of the few bodies they were able to identify in a time before DNA analysis., Because he was wearing his Mormon temple garments. Take a wild guess what part of the story the church played up to frame it as some kind of win.

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SiderealCereal@reddit

the Comet was the planet he inherited?

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hawaaa777@reddit

The garments didn’t burn?

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RunnerAtThird@reddit

Having been Mormon, that's exactly it

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Br105mbk@reddit

The plane broke up mid air over water.

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cheetuzz@reddit

I’m sorry to hear of your family’s tragedy.

Do you know approx what age your grandmother was when her father died in the accident?

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ScrubbingTheDeck@reddit

Wild guess here

The explosion because flying is affront to god?

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