Bo -- you'd know! The fate of the deHaviland Comet

[DoomsDave]

Bo, if it won't break any rules, settle a bet:

The Comet was plagued by accidents when it first came out, and some say all were grounded.

Others say some were repaired and used for years.

Who's right?

[bgl]

Dave,

First of all, I don't see any rules potentially being broken here, so that's not an issue. Secondly, this is not an easy 'yes' or 'no' situation. I'll try to do a quick summary of what happened:

There were two basic models; Comet 1 and 2 (very similar) and Comet 4. The first one, obviously was the Comet 1. First one was delivered to BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation - today's British Airways)in April 1952. There were a couple of minor accidents in its very early career that had nothing to do with the structural integrity of the airframe. For instance one crashed taking off from Rome, another stalled on take off from Karachi with 11 killed, but what really grounded the Comet 1 were two more or less identical accidents; both were BOAC Comets and both crashed into the Mediterranean with all killed. The first one on 10 Jan 1954 and the second one on 8 April 1954. The second one caused all Comet 1s to be removed from passenger service. Some continued to be flown for testing. Interestingly, the cause of the accidents was metal fatigue. The passenger windows were square, and the 90 degree angles couldn't tolerate the stress of pressurization. It took them a while to figure that out, and when they did they changed the design to oval windows.

None were really repaired. The ones that were in accidents were all removed from service. And some, like the two that crashed into the Mediterranean, were of course complete losses. A number of Comet 2s were built in the mid 1950s and most of these served with the Royal Air Force. When all the testing had been done and all conclusions had been reached, de Havilland designed the greatly improved Comet 4, 4B and 4C and the first two were delivered to BOAC on 30 Sept 1958. They remained in service for quite a few years and the last Comet 4 was retired from passenger service in 1980.

De Havilland built a total of 114 Comets. 37 were the early Comet 1/2 models and 77 were Comet 4s. (There was only one Comet 3, and that was actually a Comet 4 that was converted to Comet 3 standards!). Of the 114 built, 25 were destroyed or damaged in accidents and did not return to service. The other 89 were simply retired from service.

Bo-Göran

[DoomsDave]

Hmm.

Interesting.

I remember reading how they caused a sensation when they were first introduced as the first passenger jet.

So, they did continue to fly for a while.

Thanks for settling the bet!

[bgl]

They certainly did cause a sensation when they first started and when they first entered service in 1952. Keep in mind the two main U.S. manufacturers at the time, Douglas and Lockheed were busy building fourengined piston engined airliners (DC-6s and Constellations), which were great aircraft, but from a technology point of view they weren't even remotely close to De Havilland's Comet. Boeing, at the time, had only built a relatively small number of their Stratocruiser, but of course ended up using their military KC-135 and developed the Boeing 707 from that design. And when the jet age "really" began it was the Soviets that were the first, with their Tupolev Tu-104. Ahead of both the De Havilland Comet 4 and the Boeing 707. The initial Comet 1 "experiment" only lasted for a relatively short time and was then interrupted for several years, so that really can't be considered as the true beginning of the jet age.

And interestingly, the Comet 1 was a very small aircraft. I believe it had 37 seats and BOAC used it on longhaul routes (like UK-Australia). Today a 37 seat jet is of course an extremely small regional jet that would typically be flying very short routes like Dallas-Amarillo or Manchester-Brussels!