The day three planes showed up with the same weird crack

Last Tuesday we had three Cessna 172s come in, all with the same hairline crack near the rear spar on the right wing. First one I thought was a fluke. Second one made me pull out the inspection camera. By the third I was double checking the logs and found they all had a batch of parts from the same supplier back in 2018. Anyone else run into a weird pattern like that where it felt like the planes were trying to tell you something?

2 comments

2 Comments

matthewgonzalez21h ago

Wait, is it really that wild to think a batch of parts from 2018 might all have the same flaw? I mean, that sounds like a pretty straightforward quality control issue, not some "planes trying to tell you something" mystery. You found a crack in three planes all built around the same time with the same supplier parts, and you're surprised they match? That's just manufacturing defects, plain and simple. It's not like the planes are psychic, they're just poorly made aluminum boxes with wings. I'd be more worried if they were from different years and different suppliers and still had the same crack. That would actually be weird.

wadeyoung15h ago

My buddy found the same crack on a 2017 model too, so maybe it's not just the year.