Several years ago on a walk around inspection at IAD we found the body of a young man in the Wheel well of an Airbus A340. It was a very disturbing sight for the ground staff and it gives you some insight of how desperate these people are to seek freedom.
From an Engineering and Maintenance standpoint.
The aircraft requires lots of folks to maintain and ground handle this type. The interior is massive, IFE is a nightmare depending on which vendor is installed, a two hour turn is almost impossible to do, you need a minimum of 3 hours.
When the Aircraft pushes back at IAD it has to be escorted by Airport Ops down the Taxiway everyday because the wing span is just to big. System integration is pretty stable and reliable. The 747-400 beats this aircraft with cargo any time.
Cheers
Retired Eng.
I have been working on vintage aircraft at the NASM museum for the past 16 years. It is very sad to here when one of these old types go down, my heart goes out to the families who have lost love ones.
GB
