The De Havilland Comet Enters Service, Then Falls Apart
The world's first jet airliner cuts flight times in half, until three of them break apart in midair
Quick facts
- First scheduled jet service
- May 2, 1952, London-Johannesburg
- BOAC Flight 781 crash
- January 10, 1954, near Elba, 35 killed
- Second crash
- April 8, 1954, near Naples, 21 killed
- Cause identified
- Metal fatigue at square window corners
What happened
The de Havilland Comet, the world's first commercial jet airliner, began the first scheduled jet passenger service on May 2, 1952, flying BOAC's London to Johannesburg route at altitudes and speeds no propeller airliner could match. Then, within three months in 1954, two Comets disintegrated in midair: BOAC Flight 781 broke apart at 27,000 feet near Elba on January 10, killing all 35 aboard, and a second BOAC-owned aircraft on charter to South African Airways broke apart near Naples on April 8, killing all 21 aboard. Investigators at Britain's Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough recreated the failure by submerging an entire Comet fuselage in a water tank and repeatedly pressurizing and depressurizing it to simulate flight cycles; after 3,060 simulated cycles the fuselage failed at the corner of a cabin window, proving that metal fatigue from repeated pressurization, concentrated at the sharp corners of the Comet's nearly square window cutouts, was the cause.
Why it matters
The Comet disasters forced the entire aviation industry to adopt mandatory structural fatigue testing before certifying any new airliner design, and every jet built since has used rounded or oval windows specifically because of what investigators found in the Comet's wreckage. The three-year gap the crashes opened let Boeing catch up and overtake de Havilland with the 707, handing the commercial jet age's long-term commercial leadership to the United States rather than Britain.
How we know
The metal fatigue failure mechanism was established through the Royal Aircraft Establishment's full-scale water tank testing of a recovered Comet fuselage, a landmark forensic investigation whose methodology and findings are documented in period aviation engineering and museum sources.
Sources
- Royal Air Force Museum. Comet Enters Service · Reputable sourcerafmuseum.org.uk · The domain "rafmuseum.org.uk" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Royal Air Force Museum. Comet Failure · Reputable sourcerafmuseum.org.uk · The domain "rafmuseum.org.uk" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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