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Originally Posted by Commander Wallace
Awesome first flight of the revised 737.
The Boeing 737 aircraft has had something of a checkered past. The 737 had an issue with it's rudder control servos resulting in crashes of US Air flight 427 and United Airlines flight 585 and the loss of all aboard. These are just a few of the crashes involving the 737 although they are from various causes.
Quote : The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the USAir Flight 427 accident was a loss of control of the airplane resulting from the movement of the rudder surface to its blow down limit. The rudder surface most likely deflected in a direction opposite to that commanded by the pilots as a result of a jam of the main rudder power control unit servo valve secondary slide to the servo valve housing offset from its neutral position and over travel of the primary slide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAir_Flight_427
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_585
http://airlinesafety.com/faq/B-737Rudder.htm
http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/b737.htm
( List of 737 crashes with at least one fatality )
I hope for the safety and well being of the passengers flying aboard this class of aircraft that these issues have been corrected and the corrections fully implemented.
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There was a Mayday episode about the faulty rudder power control unit that was very sporadic and very difficult to duplicate in the testing facility. It wasn't until they cooled the pcu to -40 F and thermal shocked it with fairly hot hydraulic fluid that they were able to isolate the problem. It was corrected throughout the entire 737 fleet which at that time was thousands of planes. Anyway, the safety statistics for the 737 show it to be a very safe aircraft. Most of the incidents on your link have nothing to do with it's design.
http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm