787 Dreamliner On Fire Again 246
Antipater writes "It looks like there's more trouble afoot for Boeing's 787 Dreamliner: London's Heathrow Airport was shut down for over an hour as fire crews attended to a 'suspected fire' on a Dreamliner owned by Ethiopia Airlines. 'Aerial pictures of the scene on the U.K.'s Sky News showed the new plane — which was not carrying passengers at the time — had been sprayed by foam, but there were no signs of fire. The aircraft was not blocking either runway, but with all the airport's fire crews tackling the Boeing 787 incident, authorities were forced to suspend departures and arrivals because of safety rules.'"
One system to rule them all... (Score:5, Interesting)
Sad how one badly designed subsystem can take down an entire product.
Whistleblower vindicated again (Score:5, Interesting)
Whistleblower Michael Leon warned of this in 2006:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100406310
And for that he was terminated and his career ruined. Too bad management never wants to listen.
Re:Whistleblower vindicated again (Score:4, Interesting)
Right... An operative from Airbus commuted arson while is sat on the tarmac?
This plane is having a pretty bumpy start. Years late, an inflight fire during testing, some serious smoking battery issues that got it grounded for months and now this? This does not bode well for Boeing's dream aircraft. The problem here is that unlike most of Boeing's previous aircraft launches, the 787 is having some shockingly serious problems crop up. I think the evidence is mounting that they cut a few to many corners in their bid to cut weight and cost. Hopefully they can pull this together but as the number and seriousness of the issues stack up it starts looking less and less likely.
Seems the dream is turning into a nightmare.... A really hot and smokey nightmare. If the flying public looses confidence in the aircraft or it gets grounded again for months, this is going to be really bad for the company.
Re:Ethopia Airlines has a 787 Dreamliner? (Score:4, Interesting)
You'll also probably find that on the proviso that Ethiopia received aid from the US, a certain amount had to be spent on upgrading the transport, and guess what, our friends at Boeing will sell you an aircraft. International Aid often appears to be an elaborate method for funnelling money back into one's own country. Think of it as laundering for governments.
This happens fairly regularly. An example was China offering aid to [I think] Somalia to upgrade the infrastructure, but Chinese companies and workers had to be used. I'm trying to find references.
Cynicism bordering on paranoaia? Possibly, but don't tell me that you can't see that kind of thing happening.
Re:Whistleblower vindicated again (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem here is that unlike most of Boeing's previous aircraft launches, the 787 is having some shockingly serious problems crop up. I think the evidence is mounting that they cut a few to many corners in their bid to cut weight and cost.
It's been commented previously on Slashdot [slashdot.org] (following the previous problems) that...
The problem with the 787, and the reason that it was years behind schedule and has so many problems, is that the executive geniuses at Boeing decided to outsource as much of the engineering as they could ("outsource" here referring to both domestic and offshore outsourcing). Many of the companies that engineering was outsourced to simply didn't have the expertise. Large airliners are not exactly the kind of thing that every job shop and subcontractor has the know-how to design. There are only two companies worth mentioning in the world that do.
The only way they got the 787 out the door at all (and stemmed the financial bleeding of Boeing) was by taking emergency steps to find a large cadre of engineers who had decades of deep experience in airliner design. They found them at (surprise, surprise) Boeing! Golly, you mean there was some wisdom to the way the world's most successful airliner manufacturer has designed planes for decades? Whodda thunk it? No doubt the top execs at Boeing will get large bonuses for discovering this brilliant last minute solution, and blame Boeing engineering for the problems that do remain.
So, it sounds like they tried to "cut corners" in more than one sense, and also paid for that. (I'd credit the poster of the above personally for his/her insightful comment, but it was posted anonymously).