Original Message

You mean, like the 407 in Hawaii that had its TAIL BOOM FALL OFF in flight? OMG, how does that happen? Back in the bad old days, when preflighting a 206, us old timers would stick a finger on the gap between the fuselage and the tail boom. Then, reaching as far back as we could, we'd put some "pulsing" pressure on the boom, seeing if we could detect any movement at the attach points. Is this not taught anymore? Some things can be caught on preflight, some can't. Let us hope that whatever caused this old, historic UH-1B to crash was not something that could have been caught and prevented.