Speaking of air disasters and counterfeit parts, during one really bad =
thunderstorm at night I heard this plane come down less than 2Km from where I lived:
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My Dad was almost booked on that flight but was able to an earlier flig= ht =
due to a cancelled booking and was home when it crashed on approach.
As far as counterfeit parts go it's common for helicopter parts "out of= =
hours" or past their use by date to be pressed back into service. Certain model= s =
of helicopters are known to shed rotor blades and over the years have had the official = =
service lifetime of the blades reduced more than once due to "accidents".
My favourite story was of the 1950's vintage Hiller helicopter that use= d =
laminated wood and metal rotor blades: the engineers fitted a new set and could no= t =
get them to dynamically balance at all. Further inspection found the blades were =
counterfeits that had been made of palm tree wood at a local Egyptian carpenter's. This occurr= ed =
in the 1980's sometime if I recall correctly.