i don't care what the pilot says...i would get off that plane so quick. holy shit. come on now. i prefer to fly with wing tips intact thankyouverymuch.

For some reason, I'm reminded of the "harmless foam incident" from a shuttle mission a few years ago.

Many scientists never thought the appendix was useless in the first place, and most have more or less always known that it serves a function at least until puberty. This seems to be one of those goofy canards about human development and evolution, alongside "the coccyx used to be a tail LOL."

Damn you, I wanted to post that!

I have to make the same disclosure as SleepyLady does, namely that I have no special knowledge or training in physics, but at least so far as I understand it generally, it seems like:

1) The drag would be greatly imbalanced across the span of the plane, which would lead me to guess that flying it would be more difficult and require more attention, which is not really acceptable.

2) The drag could (my conjecture, again) continue to tear at the ragged wing-tip and cause further damage, possibly even to the actual wing itself. I assume that would be more disastrous than losing some fuel mileage.

I'm not traveling in a plane that's missing an anything. Enough said.

I´d fly that thing till the wings came off, baby...

Also I would like to add:

"Suit up!!"



"...and you do need wing-tips!"

If it's good enough for the pilots and flight attendants and Boeing, it's good enough for me.

Meh.

Yeah, the story didn't explain that the tips were completely removed and the wings were inspected thoroughly.

Based on the pictures, I was under the impression that there was "hanging wreckage."

i fly for a living (not a pilot no) and I wouldn't have had a problem staying on that plane, I would have tried to get free tickets or something but I wouldn't have had even a little problem with it.

I do not claim to be an expert, but I do know a little about airplanes (they made me study that sort of thing when I was getting my pilot's certificate).

1) The wing tips are used to reduce drag and wing tip vortexes. How much drag? I'm not sure, but it would not be anywhere near enough to make the plane hard to fly. Keep in mind these planes are designed to fly with single engine failures. I'm sure loosing over 60000 pounds of thrust on one side of the plane would cause more yaw than losing a wingtip. The plane has a rudder trim that allows for yaw correction with no extra workload on the pilots.

2) The wing tips are not a structural part of the wing. I believe that most planes are not even required to have the wingtips in place to be airworthy per the FAA. I am sure they would have removed the remains of the tip before takeoff or at least covered it with duct tape. Otherwise, worse case the tip could have been torn off inflight, but damage to the wing would not be an issue.

Now, as I said, I am no expert. It is easy for me to say I would have stayed on the plane because I wasn't there. I would like to think my common sense would have prevailed, but can't say for sure. Self preservation is a hard instinct to fight...