But the de Havilland Comet’s success was short-lived. A fatal design flaw, hidden in plain sight, turned square windows into a deadly weakness. Cracks formed, pressure built, and tragedy followed.

But the de Havilland Comet's groundbreaking leap into the Jet Age came at a terrible cost. Discover how design flaws, overlooked physics, and high-flying ambition turned this British aviation ...

The Comet 4 was the final result of de Havilland's efforts to correct these issues with a more resilient design and four RR Avon 524 engines that offered speeds of 503 mph. Its range was a ...

It wasn’t an American design, as the De Havilland ... until the Comet 1 variant was grounded permanently. The last one, on April 8, 1954, revealed the fatal flaw that had caused all three ...

Geoffrey de Havilland disagreed with this assessment, and used his influence to permit a turbojet powered design. The first Comets, designated Comet 1, utilized de Havilland’s Ghost turbojets ...

When the de Havilland Comet flew into the sky in 1949 ... but the incident also exposed an inherent flaw with the design. “The cause of the accident wasn’t only the wing but the lack of ...

Three Comets crashed in 1952 and 1953, but these were due to broken landing gear, a slight design flaw ... dashed from the grip of De Havilland but, ironically, the Comet is what made the 707 ...

The shape of airplane windows might seem arbitrary, but there’s actually a grim reason behind their design ... to the UK’s ill-fated de Havilland Comet 1 Aircraft, which experienced a spate ...

The British de Havilland Comet was the first of its kind — a jet airliner that would revolutionize air travel and pave the way for other airliners to follow. Its first prototype launched in 1949 ...

Fatigue failure is a common challenge in machine design. For engineers and designers ... example to aid this is the 1954 crash of the De Havilland Comet. As the world’s first commercial jetliner ...

Developed and manufactured by de Havilland in the United Kingdom, the Comet 1 prototype first flew in 1949. It featured an aerodynamically clean design with four de Havilland Ghost turbojet ...