When stiffening members, such as stringers and frame members, are welded onto a skin sheet to form an aircraft fuselage shell, a crack originating in the skin sheet tends to propagate through the weld joints into the stiffening members. In order to prevent crack propagation into a stiffening member, the stiffening member is reinforced with a web doubler plate or a tension band made of high strength steel or titanium alloys or fiber-reinforced composites. The doubler plate is riveted or adhesively bonded onto a stiffening member web, or the tension band is crimped into the stiffening member web. The resulting fuselage shell structure has crack stopping properties and thus an increased residual strength, so it can be used with welded joints at all areas of the fuselage shell, including the top and sides as well as the bottom of the fuselage.