A Design Error That Doomed B-29s Every Day

Fatal Design Flaw

The B-29 Superfortress became famous as a bomber that delivered the nuclear bomb over Japan. However, this iconic plane had a hidden but fatal design flaw, a flaw that led to the catastrophic failure of the aircraft almost every single day of its 14-month service.

The plane that could at least hold a crew of 10, and could ruggedly take down enemy planes, couldn’t land without a strange phenomenon happening. When attempting to land, the wing flaps would slow down the aircraft. As a result, it would hit the runway, skid, and keel over.

It was later found out that the controls for the wing flaps and landing gear looked precisely the same, as well as positioned close to one another. So close that exhausted pilots approaching runways flipped the switch which they thought were landing gears, but turned out to be the wing flaps switch. This slows down their descent and grounds the plane.

Fortunately, a system was designed to ensure that all knobs and levers were different shapes and sizes so that pilots wouldn’t be confused when reaching out for controls. After this modification, no similar accident took place.