Rebuilding planes ‘not uncommon’

Rebuilding an aircraft after a destructive crash is not an uncommon process particularly with older planes, an aviation expert has said.

Julian Bray, who has more than 50 years’ experience in the security and operations side of the aviation industry, said rebuilding an aircraft after a crash is not uncommon.

“You have only got to look at any heritage aircraft collection and a lot of those, the Spitfires for example that are flying today, a lot of those crashed during or after the war,” he said.

“Really it is a pile of components and you can actually reuse those – obviously they go through tests and everything else – but it is not uncommon.”

Mr Bray said that depending on how a plane crashed and where the impact was, there will be certain sections of the airframe, aircraft parts and engine that could be reused.

“Obviously it has got to be carefully inspected and tested to make sure there are no breaks or near visible cracks – they will test them with X-rays all sorts of things, to make sure they are airworthy,” he said.

“Once they have been approved they can be incorporated into what is basically a new aircraft.”

He said old and vintage planes will “harbour” a lot of components from other aircraft, and relatively modern ones will have components from others because they will be “swapped over”.