The deHavilland Comet Disaster - A Story of Fatigue

A public lecture on the iconic deHavilland Comet and its fateful series of crashes in 1954 delivered by Prof. Paul Withey at the University of Bristol on 29 April 2019. This recording is funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering under Research Fellowship RF\201718\17178.

The Topic
The de Havilland Comet was the first commercial jet aircraft and ushered in the “Jet Age” on 2nd May 1952 by taking fare-paying passengers from London to Johannesburg. However, two accidents in 1954 grounded the Comet fleet and the subsequent investigation has ensured that the Comet remains a notorious example of fatigue failure. This talk looks at the history of the Comet aircraft, from concept to entry into service, reviews the accident investigation, and uses modern analysis to review the fatigue failure that sparked the research. Using this analysis, the general perceptions of the causes can be examined and a likely chain of events which led to the failure is proposed.

The Speaker
Prof. Paul Withey joined the University of Birmingham School of Metallurgy and Materials in 2018 after a career at Rolls-Royce, culminating as the Engineering Associate Fellow in Casting Technology. Paul’s interests revolve around investment casting with a focus on single crystal casting for aerospace components.