Pilot 24

A windscreen bolt was the wrong size. The co-pilot was half-sucked out at 32,000 feet. He survived.

Sichuan Airlines Flight 8633 lost its right cockpit windscreen at 32,000 feet over China in 2018. Co-pilot Xu Ruichen was partially pulled through the opening and his torso was outside the aircraft at extreme altitude. Captain Liu Chuanjian held the controls with one hand and held his co-pilot with the other while the aircraft depressurised violently. They landed safely.

The windscreen had been installed 44 days earlier by maintenance using an incorrect bolt specification — the same failure mode as British Airways 5390 in 1990.

Does the near-identical cause to BA 5390 in 1990 suggest the aviation maintenance system failed to propagate the lesson of that accident globally?