The Nation - News from Feb. 18, 1986

Federal Aviation Administration officials toughened a two-week-old airworthiness order and said that all U.S. airlines must look for cracks in the internal frames of aging Boeing 747 jumbo jets. The revised order came two weeks after the FAA ordered domestic airlines to check for cracks in the external metal skin of the forward body of all 747s that have logged more than 10,000 landings. Although the original FAA directive called only for external visual inspections, some airlines also found cracks in the rib-like frames inside the skin.