ALLEN LANDIS said:
I hope there were inshured ?
Railroads are generally self insured, so I’m guessing BNSF is going to take the hit on this one. I’m sure the BNSF/Boeing haulage agreement covers the details of something like this so it might be easier than a regular derailment! No one is saying how much the 737 bodies are worth in this stage, but as I said either I’d guess in the $20-40 million dollar range for each.
Airliners.net has a thread going on this and the general conclusion of who’s ultimately responsible is we don’t know who’s ultimately responsible. The insurance and liability agreements between Boeing, BNSF, and Spirit Aero Systems (the manufacturer in Wichita of the fuselages) are not a matter of public record so although who’s responsible was likely already arranged with this whole shipping contract, we may never know specifics of the payouts. A complete Boeing 737-800 carries a list price of $90 million. However, no airline ever pays list price for the airframe, with discounts of as much at 50% not unheard of, especially on a mature frame nearing the end of its production cycle like the 737NG. The value of the loss is also hard to determine because these aircraft were already spoken for, so again, depending on the aircraft sales agreements and how the receiving airlines planned to use these (are they for growth/expansions, are there older more expensive to operate airframes waiting to be replaced, are they being bought or leased, are they purchase/leasebacks, etc), penalties for not delivering the airframe as scheduled could also be involved. There is evidence of major damage to these fuselages (cracks, doors being dislodged), so it’s extremely unlikely they will ever fly, unless they are first melted down and then reformed. Current agreement seems to be that the airplanes involved were somewhere between line numbers 5029 and 5039. I can’t find which airlines have spoken for which in that line.
Yea, the two that made it all the way down into the water are really torn up. The one having cracked into 2 parts. They may be scrapped, but maybe they will be donated to an aviation school. Here in Pittsburgh, there is a worn out FedEx 727 parked on the apron near the Pittsburgh Institute for Aeronautics building.
I should add that the airlines that these were supposed to go to will ultimately have the final say. They are within their rights to refuse to take delivery of the airplane because of this. I’m sure Boeing will be in touch as they won’t want to go through the expense of building the plane only to have it be refused. With the number of 737s out there needing, these planes will be worth plenty in parts.
Reports out of Missoula say that the 3rd and final plane has been lifted from the river as of noon Tuesday (7/8). Sounds like 4 days from derailment to end of cleanup, not too bad with the size/scope of this type of recovery.
TJ Hickman said:
Current agreement seems to be that the airplanes involved were somewhere between line numbers 5029 and 5039.
Numbers: 5029, 5030, 5031, 5032, 5035, 5036.
It is great that we have such knowledgeable members who can shed light on all kinds of prototype railroading activities such as this financial tragedy. We get good, concise reportage without the wild conjecture often found on newscasts where the reporters just want to fill airtime.
More pictures post derailment. Rivulet, MT
Hey maybe they’ll still be there next Tuesday when we go float the Clark Fork river right where the accident happened. Thanks for the pictures Craig.
That’s some big aluminum cans for the recycling bin.
Chuck Inlow said:
Hey maybe they’ll still be there next Tuesday when we go float the Clark Fork river right where the accident happened. Thanks for the pictures Craig.
Everything is out of the river and cleaned up. I’m sure you can figure out where the derailment happened because of the tree clearing! Enjoy the float.
Well the question of what was going to happen to the fuselages has been answered… Scrapped!
Pictures from the Missoulian. http://missoulian.com/news/local/crews-dismantling-boeing-fuselages-pulled-from-clark-fork/article_d99e81e0-1386-11e4-93eb-0019bb2963f4.html
From the article it seems to indicate that all 6 were scrapped on site.
Yea, at this point they were probably too damaged to do anything with. To try and salvage some panels and assorted parts would probably take more man hours then to build new. Besides, an insurance company probably paid for them, and they just want to get the scrap value as quickly as possible and move on.
Well guys actually everything “IS NOT” out of the water. We floated the Clark Fork river on Tuesday with ROW and we asked our giude about the accident sceen and if everything was removed. He said there is still a flatcar in the river in the deepest part and we would pass over the top of it on our float trip. Unfortunately our raft didn’t get to see anything at the point of the accident because we flipped in a rapid just before the accident but the other two rafts saw the car in the water.
As we were coming to the end of our trip a jet boat came racing up the river and past us. They caught up with us at the departure point and we found out that the people on the boat were Montana Rail Link officials and the salvage crew. They went up river to look at the submerged car and brought back more parts of the accident. One of the ROW guides asked for a piece of the salvage and they told him it all had to be accounted for. They also told him they were making plans to remove the car from the river soon.