Just learned that a single loose screw on a pitot tube can throw off airspeed by 12 knots on a 737

I was reading through an old NTSB report from 2019 (site was down due to weather, had some time to kill in the truck) and found this case where a missing screw on the pitot static port caused a 12 knot error at cruise. Never would have thought something that small could mess with the numbers that much. Now I'm triple checking every screw on every probe I touch. Has anyone else run into a similar surprise from a tiny defect like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

margaret_jackson7312d ago

Saw a YouTube video where a guy found a bug in a sensor caused a 20 knot error.

parker_park812d ago

Wait, are you sure that sensor was the real problem?