de Havilland Comet


British European Airways (BEA) Comet 4B arriving at Berlin Tempelhof Airport in 1969

The de Havilland DH.106 Comet is the world's first commercial jet airliner. Developed and manufactured by de Havilland in the United Kingdom, the Comet 1 prototype first flew in 1949. It features an aerodynamically clean design with four de Havilland Ghost turbojet engines buried in the wing roots, a pressurised cabin, and large windows. For the era, it offered a relatively quiet, comfortable passenger cabin and was commercially promising at its debut in 1952.

Within a year of the airliner's entry into service, three Comets were lost in highly publicized accidents after suffering catastrophic mishaps mid-flight. Two of these were found to be caused by structural failure resulting from metal fatigue in the airframe, a phenomenon not fully understood at the time; the other was due to overstressing of the airframe during flight through severe weather. The Comet was withdrawn from service and extensively tested. Design and construction flaws, including improper riveting and dangerous stress concentrations around square cut-outs for the ADF (automatic direction finder) antennas were ultimately identified. As a result, the Comet was extensively redesigned, with structural reinforcements and other changes. Rival manufacturers heeded the lessons learned from the Comet when developing their own aircraft.

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Operational history

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Comet disasters of 1954

Main articles: BOAC Flight 781 and South African Airways Flight 201

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Cohen Committee Court of Inquiry


BOAC Comet 1 cocooned and stored in the maintenance area at London Heathrow Airport in September 1954

On 19 October 1954, the Cohen Committee was established to examine the causes of the Comet crashes. Chaired by Lord Cohen, the committee tasked an investigation team led by Sir Arnold Hall, Director of the RAE at Farnborough, to perform a more-detailed investigation. Hall's team began considering fatigue as the most likely cause of both accidents and initiated further research into measurable strain on the aircraft's skin. With the recovery of large sections of G-ALYP from the Elba crash and BOAC's donation of an identical airframe, G-ALYU, for further examination, an extensive "water torture" test eventually provided conclusive results. This time, the entire fuselage was tested in a dedicated water tank that was built specifically at Farnborough to accommodate its full length.


Image from the Cohen Inquiry Report showing fuselage failure under water pressure test of Comet 1 G-ALYU. Note intact escape hatch window frame

In water-tank testing, engineers subjected G-ALYU to repeated repressurisation and over-pressurisation, and on 24 June 1954, after 3,057 flight cycles (1,221 actual and 1,836 simulated), G-ALYU burst open. Hall, Geoffrey de Havilland and Bishop were immediately called to the scene, where the water tank was drained to reveal that the fuselage had ripped open at a bolt hole, forward of the forward left escape hatch cut out. The failure then occurred longitudinally along a fuselage stringer at the widest point of the fuselage and through a cut out for an escape hatch. The skin thickness was discovered to be insufficient to distribute the load across the structure, leading to overloading of fuselage frames adjacent to fuselage cut outs. (Cohen Inquiry accident report Fig 7). The fuselage frames did not have sufficient strength to prevent the crack from propagating. Although the fuselage failed after a number of cycles that represented three times the life of G-ALYP at the time of the accident, it was still much earlier than expected. A further test reproduced the same results. Based on these findings, Comet 1 structural failures could be expected at anywhere from 1,000 to 9,000 cycles. Before the Elba accident, G-ALYP had made 1,290 pressurised flights, while G-ALYY had made 900 pressurised flights before crashing. Dr P. B. Walker, Head of the Structures Department at the RAE, said he was not surprised by this, noting that the difference was about three to one, and previous experience with metal fatigue suggested a total range of nine to one between experiment and outcome in the field could result in failure.

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Square window myths


Surviving DeHavilland Comet 1 showing rectangular windows with rounded corners not 'square' as commonly described.

Despite findings of the Cohen Inquiry, a number of myths have evolved around the cause of the Comet 1's accidents. Most commonly quoted are the 'square' passenger windows. While the report noted that stress around fuselage cut-outs, emergency exits and windows was found to be much higher than expected due to DeHavilland's assumptions and testing methods the passenger windows shape has been commonly misunderstood and cited as a cause of the fuselage failure. In fact the mention of 'windows' in the Cohen report's conclusion, refers specifically to the origin point of failure in the ADF Antenna cut-out 'windows', located above the cockpit, not passenger windows. The shape of the passenger windows were not indicated in any failure mode detailed in the accident report and were not viewed as a contributing factor. A number of other pressurised airliners of the period including the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, Douglas DC-7, and DC-8 had larger more 'square' windows than the Comet 1 and experienced no such failures. In fact, the Comet 1's window general shape resembles a slightly larger Boeing 737 window mounted horizontally. They are rectangular not square, have rounded corners and are within 5% of the radius of the Boeing 737 windows and virtually identical to modern airliners. Paul Withey, Professor of Casting at the University of Birmingham School of Metallurgy states in a video presentation delivered in 2019, analysing all available data that: "The fact that DeHavilland put oval windows into later marks, is not because of any 'squareness' of the windows that caused failure." "DeHavilland went to oval windows on the subsequent Marks because it was easier to Redux them in (use adhesive) – nothing to do with the stress concentration and it's purely to remove rivets." (from the structure)

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