Sri Lankan: No Winglet, No Problem!

[Matt Molnar]

Passengers revolt after being told to fly on jet with its wing tip missing
By DANIEL BOFFEY
Last updated at 18:01pm on 4th November 2007

An airline crew faced a rebellion when they told passengers they were going to fly on a jet that had lost its wing tip in a runway crash.

The SriLankan Airlines customers had been on the Airbus A340 a day earlier when it sliced through a wing of a stationary British Airways 747 at Heathrow, delaying departure by 24 hours.

So they were amazed to be boarding the same plane next day for the ten-hour flight to Colombo. More...

Story has great pictures of the post-wing clip scene.

[Nonstop2AUH]

When will the media do some basic research before doing an aviation story? They write this as if the wingtip of the plane was missing, like people were looking out the window and a part of the wing was missing, when in fact the winglet is what was the issue here. If there's any safety issue related to flying an A340 without a winglet I'd be surprised. And lest anyone think SriLankan is some kind of 3rd world airline with dodgy operating procedures, it's actually some 40 or 50% owned by Emirates. Whole coverage looks a bit overly dramatic to me!

[LGA777]

From looking at the photos the damage looks significant to BA but insignificant to the A-340. Whatever damage there was probably was limited to the 340's winglet, so it was simply removed.

LGA777

[tipek]

SAS A330 came to IAD few times with missing winglet. She lost her winglet on the ground in Denmark in colision with another aircraft. Here is a picture of her from IAD
http://www.flyiad.net/picindex/pages/0016.htm

Rafal

[Iberia A340-600]

Looks like BA didn't have an issue!

[jetphotos:20b2a]http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=6101103[/jetphotos:20b2a]

[Nonstop2AUH]

The BA pic says it all, especially to the gent from Milton Keynes who opined in the post-article readers' commentary that he would 'stick to BA next time.' Obviously a British plane missing a winglet must be superior to a Sri Lankan plane missing a winglet, because it's British! Sure, and the sun never sets on the British Empire...

[Matt Molnar]

Maybe he meant an American-built plane missing a winglet is better than a European-built plane missing a winglet. :mrgreen:

[Nonstop2AUH]

Oh noooooo...It's A vs. B: Winglet Edition. Seriously, this story got me wondering what the resulting operability would be if the same happened to an aircraft with raked wingtips (like 777W, 764, etc.). Anyone know if that is an add-on that can be flown without (like a winglet) or an integral part of the wing itself?