{"id":1530887,"date":"2026-06-04T18:05:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/?p=1530887"},"modified":"2026-06-25T13:36:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T11:36:39","slug":"de-havilland-comet-first-jet-airliner-metal-fatigue-square-windows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/de\/de-havilland-comet-first-jet-airliner-metal-fatigue-square-windows\/","title":{"rendered":"De Havilland Comet: First, Beautiful, Deadly"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n\nThe de Havilland Comet was beautiful. Sleek, four-engined, impossibly quiet compared to the propliners it replaced. On 2 May 1952, BOAC Comet G-ALYP departed London for Johannesburg \u2014 the world's first scheduled jet airline service. Passengers sipped champagne at 40,000 feet while propeller aircraft laboured at half that altitude below them. The future had arrived.\n\nTwo years later, two Comets broke apart in mid-air within three months of each other. The investigation that followed discovered metal fatigue \u2014 a phenomenon no aircraft designer had properly accounted for \u2014 and it changed every airliner built since.\n\n\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:18px 22px;margin:20px 0 28px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0\">\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;color:#333;font-size:17px\">Quick Facts &mdash; de Havilland Comet<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>First flight:<\/strong> 27 July 1949<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>First commercial service:<\/strong> 2 May 1952 (BOAC, London&ndash;Johannesburg)<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>The 1954 disasters:<\/strong> BOAC Flight 781 (10 Jan 1954, 35 killed) and SAA Flight 201 (8 Apr 1954, 21 killed)<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Cause:<\/strong> Metal fatigue at stress concentrations around the corners of windows and other fuselage cutouts<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin:4px 0;font-size:15px\"><strong>Legacy:<\/strong> Rounded windows on every airliner built since; mandatory fatigue testing<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Two Crashes, One Mystery<\/h2>\n\nOn 10 January 1954, BOAC Flight 781 \u2014 Comet G-ALYP, named \"Yoke Peter\" \u2014 broke apart at 27,000 feet near the island of Elba in the Mediterranean. All 35 aboard died. Three months later, on 8 April, South African Airways Flight 201 \u2014 a BOAC Comet on charter, G-ALYY \u2014 disintegrated over the sea near Stromboli, south of Naples. All 21 aboard died. Both aircraft had simply come apart in the sky.\n\nThe Comet fleet was grounded. The Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough launched the most exhaustive aircraft investigation in history.\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Water Tank<\/h2>\n\nSir Arnold Hall's team at Farnborough devised a test that had never been attempted: they submerged a complete Comet fuselage \u2014 G-ALYU, \"Yoke Uncle\" \u2014 in a water tank and pressurised it repeatedly to simulate the stresses of climbing to cruising altitude and descending again. Each pressurisation cycle simulated one flight.\n\nAfter 3,057 total cycles (1,221 actual flights plus 1,836 simulated), the fuselage burst open \u2014 the failure starting at the corner of the forward escape hatch, a cutout with the same fatal geometry as the windows. In the recovered wreckage of G-ALYP itself, investigators traced the break-up to a crack that began at a rivet hole near the rear ADF aerial window. The tight corner radii of the Comet's nearly square cutouts created stress concentrations far higher than de Havilland's engineers had predicted. Every pressurisation cycle widened microscopic cracks at these corners until the fuselage could no longer hold together.\n\nPresenting the findings, Sir Arnold Hall, director of the Royal Aircraft Establishment, concluded that the failures were the result of metal fatigue caused by the repeated pressurisation and de-pressurisation of the cabin.\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Round Windows Forever<\/h2>\n\nThe fix was straightforward: round the windows. Oval or circular window cutouts distribute stress evenly instead of concentrating it at corners. Every commercial airliner built since the Comet \u2014 every Boeing, every Airbus, every Embraer, every Bombardier \u2014 has round or oval windows. Look out the window on your next flight: the shape exists because of two Comets that fell into the Mediterranean in 1954.\n\nThe Comet programme recovered. The redesigned Comet 4 entered service in 1958 with oval windows, thicker skin, and proper fatigue testing. But the delay had been fatal to de Havilland's commercial ambitions: the Boeing 707, which benefited enormously from the Comet's lessons, entered service that same year and swept the market.\n\nThe Comet was beautiful. It was first. And it taught the world a lesson written in aluminium and blood: metal gets tired, and corners kill.\n\n\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YVvKk-rGJME\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n<em>Sources: Royal Aircraft Establishment Court of Inquiry, FAA Lessons Learned, de Havilland Aircraft Museum, Air & Space Quarterly<\/em>\n\n<!-- mf-faq -->\n\n<div class=\"mf-faq-block\"><style>.mf-faq-block{margin:34px 0}.mf-faq-item:not([open]) .mf-faq-answer{display:none !important}.mf-faq-block h2.mf-faq-h{padding-top:22px;margin-bottom:14px}.mf-faq-item{border:1px solid #e2e8f5;border-radius:8px;margin:0 0 10px;background:#fff}.mf-faq-item summary{list-style:none;cursor:pointer;padding:15px 50px 15px 18px;font-weight:600;color:#1a1a1a;position:relative;line-height:1.45;user-select:none}.mf-faq-item summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mf-faq-item summary::after{content:\"+\";position:absolute;right:18px;top:50%;transform:translateY(-50%);font-size:1.5em;font-weight:400;color:#5C91FF;line-height:1}.mf-faq-item[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mf-faq-item[open] summary{border-bottom:1px solid #eef1f8}.mf-faq-item summary:hover{background:#f5f8ff}.mf-faq-answer{padding:14px 18px;color:#333;line-height:1.6}.mf-faq-answer p{margin:0}<\/style><h2 class=\"mf-faq-h\">Related Questions<\/h2><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>What was the de Havilland Comet?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>The de Havilland Comet was the world's first jet airliner. It first flew on 27 July 1949 and began commercial service with BOAC on 2 May 1952, flying higher, faster and far more smoothly than any propeller airliner \u2014 briefly making Britain the leader in jet air travel.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>Why did the de Havilland Comet keep crashing?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>Two Comets broke apart in flight in early 1954 \u2014 BOAC Flight 781 in January (35 killed) and South African Airways Flight 201 in April (21 killed). The cause was metal fatigue: repeated pressurisation cracked the fuselage at stress points around the corners of windows and cutouts.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>When did the de Havilland Comet first fly?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>The prototype first flew on 27 July 1949, and the Comet entered commercial service with BOAC on 2 May 1952 on the London\u2013Johannesburg route \u2014 the dawn of the jet airliner age.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>What did the Comet crashes teach the aviation industry?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>They revealed the danger of metal fatigue from repeated cabin pressurisation. The investigation led directly to rounded windows on all later airliners and to mandatory fatigue testing of airframes \u2014 lessons that have made every jet since far safer.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>How many people died in the Comet disasters?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>The two 1954 break-ups killed 56 people in total \u2014 35 aboard BOAC Flight 781 and 21 aboard South African Airways Flight 201. The losses grounded the Comet and forced a complete redesign of the aircraft.<\/p><\/div><\/details><\/div>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What was the de Havilland Comet?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The de Havilland Comet was the world's first jet airliner. It first flew on 27 July 1949 and began commercial service with BOAC on 2 May 1952, flying higher, faster and far more smoothly than any propeller airliner \u2014 briefly making Britain the leader in jet air travel.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Why did the de Havilland Comet keep crashing?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Two Comets broke apart in flight in early 1954 \u2014 BOAC Flight 781 in January (35 killed) and South African Airways Flight 201 in April (21 killed). 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[&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":1530587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[665,666],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1530887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation-world","category-history-and-legends"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>De Havilland Comet: First, Beautiful, Deadly | Afterburner - MiGFlug&#039;s Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The de Havilland Comet was beautiful. 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