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A Boeing whistleblower recently claimed he was chided for slowing production when he found defects in airplane parts. The former quality inspector, identified as Santiago Paredes, who previously worked for Spirit AeroSystems in Kansas, told the BBC that plane bodies were regularly shipped out of the factory with serious issues, the outlet reported Wednesday. Paredes claimed he used to find nearly 200 defects in the parts, and he tried to slow production to deal with the problems. He also alleged that leadership put him under pressure to not be so meticulous. “They always made a fuss about why I was...

Panicked passengers were forced to flee the burning wreckage of a Boeing 737 when it skidded off the runway in Senegal early Thursday, video showed. Eleven people were injured – four of them severely – when the Air Senegal flight headed from Bamako, Mali, crashed mid-lift off from Dakar’s Blaise Diagne airport shortly after 1 a.m. local time, the BBC reported. One of the 78 passengers was seen scrambling away from the Boeing 737-300 aircraft as it went up in flames, one clip from the scene showed. The plane – which Air Senegal chartered from the Senegalese carrier Transair –...

I don't know if this will qualify as "the other shoe dropping" in Boeing's ongoing problems, but the news certainly doesn't sound great. The Federal Aviation Administration announced yesterday that they were opening an investigation into the company after Boeing reported that workers at its South Carolina production plant had falsified inspection records on some of its new 787 Dreamliner planes. The Dreamliner has already fallen behind its original production schedule and this sort of investigation isn't likely to help them catch up. Also, the inspection records in question sound rather important, so people will probably need to go back...

Boeing cargo plane forced to land at Istanbul without front landing gear Incident involving Boeing 767 jet operated by FedEx comes amid intense scrutiny of troubled planemaker Jasper Jolly and agencies Wed 8 May 2024 08.22 EDT Share A Boeing cargo plane has been forced to land at Istanbul airport without its front landing gear, in the latest setback for the embattled planemaker. Nobody was hurt in the incident, in a flight operated by the delivery company FedEx, according to Turkey’s transport ministry. The Boeing 767 aircraft, flying from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport on Wednesday, informed the traffic control...

Boeing 767 FedEx plane makes emergency landing without nose gear in Turkey Front landing gear of a Boeing 767 cargo plane landing in Istanbul malfunctioned. As a result the plane nosedived into the runway without any casualty

The Pivotal Helix is a single-seat eVTOL (electric Vertical Take-Off & Landing) PAV (Personal Aerial Vehicle) with a range of 20+ miles (with 20% reserve) and a cruise speed 55 knots (63 mph). You can order now for July 2024 delivery, and no license is required, though you can't take delivery until you have completed the training. Pivotal ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Personal flight is currently undergoing a renaissance thanks to the rapid advancement of so many requisite industrial technologies. The next phase of personal flight is poised to begin and the production version of this aircraft could well mark the occasion in...

Elon Musk is chiding Boeing on social media for employing "too many" non-technical managers amid a wave of ongoing layoffs at his own company, Tesla. Musk fired off his thoughts on X this week, responding to reporting on Boeing's Starliner spacecraft, which is set to make a launch attempt on Monday evening after years of delays and setbacks. In 2014, NASA granted Boeing $4.2 billion and Musk's SpaceX $2.6 billion to develop a commercial crew system that could transport astronauts to the International Space Station. Despite working with a little more than half of the money that Boeing received, SpaceX...

What makes this electric aircraft irresistible is that it literally makes flying accessible to most. It doesn't require a pilot's license in the US, and it's designed to be extremely easy to fly. It's also a one-seater, which makes it a rarity among eVTOLs (electric vertical takeoff and landing) and flying cars. As Patan describes it, piloting the Jetson One feels almost like driving a car but doing it up in the sky.

The aviation giant Boeing is facing a growing number of whistleblowers coming forward with safety concerns following the recent deaths of two previous whistleblowers, the New York Post reported. The first whistleblower, John Barnett, a 62-year-old former Boeing quality control manager, was found dead in March in an apparent suicide. Barnett had been in the midst of giving depositions, alleging Boeing retaliated against him for complaints about quality lapses. Barnett was found in his truck “suffering from a gunshot wound to the head.” A suicide note was reportedly found next to Boeing whistleblower John Barnett. However, his lawyers are questioning...

China’s first home-grown narrowbody passenger jet has passed a battery of “deep level” safety tests as part of a step that is expected to help the C919 find overseas markets as its rival Boeing wrestles with a list of mechanical woes. China Eastern Airlines Technology, a subsidiary of the group that owns C919 operator China Eastern Airlines, concluded four days of “A-inspection” tests on Monday at a hangar in Shanghai, the Civil Aviation Administration said on Tuesday. The aircraft is required to undergo safety checks after either every four months, 700 flight hours or 500 flight cycles – meaning the...

A small-scale jet engine compact enough to fit on a tabletop is helping to make the future of aviation more sustainable, according to NASA engineers currently involved in tests that could help pave the way toward new aircraft propulsion systems of the coming decades. The DGEN380 Aero-Propulsion Research Turbofan (DART) is less than 4.5 feet in length, making it half the size of engines on moderately sized aircraft, and NASA engineers are now using the miniature engine to help to reduce costs associated with using a full-sized jet engine for research and testing purposes. Currently, experiments with the small jet...

Some aviation experts argue the FAA’s focus on ‘diversity’ instead of ’merit' in hiring pilots and controllers is leading to serious safety concerns... As the U.S. Justice Department decides whether to pursue a criminal case against Boeing, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is investigating dozens of airplane incidents since January, including one in which a Swiss Air jet almost collided with four other planes on the runway at JFK International Airport in New York City. The FAA has more than 100 aviation accidents and incidents since the beginning of 2024. These include airplane and helicopter crashes, equipment and mechanical malfunctions,...

<p>ANCHORAGE, Alaska—One of the two pilots of a vintage military plane that was delivering heating oil to a remote Alaska Native village reported a fire on board shortly before the aircraft crashed and burned outside Fairbanks, killing both of them and leaving debris over a wide area, a federal transportation official said Wednesday.</p>

Swiss Air flight aborts takeoff from JFK, safely leaves minutes later... A Swiss Air flight traveling from New York City to Zurich last week had to abort takeoff, averting a "potentially dangerous situation," the airline confirmed. Flight LX17 from John F. Kennedy Airport left the gate at 4:21 p.m. April 17, according to FlightAware. The aircraft was cleared for takeoff at the same time an air traffic controller on another frequency cleared four other jets to cross the runway, according to audio obtained by NPR. "Due to the high level of situational awareness and quick reaction of our crew, a...

The terrifying moment a wheel feel of a Boeing 737 fully loaded with passengers was caught on video, adding to a long list of incidents. The footage showed the plane grinding along the runway after being forced to make an emergency landing shortly after takeoff. Airport safety staff at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, South Africa noticed the FlySafair aircraft had damaged its undercarriage on takeoff. The airline said the plane made a low pass over the airport so technical teams could view the landing gear. Upon inspection, engineers found one of four rear wheels had been clipped during...

On March 20, 1971, a specially modified US Air Force B-52 bomber from the 4200th Support Squadron took off from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam carrying a unique aircraft mounted under its wing. The aircraft, shaped like a dart and painted black, was a D-21 supersonic reconnaissance drone. It was to be the fourth such drone to conduct aerial reconnaissance of China's Lop Nor nuclear test site in northwestern China, and despite its sophistication, it would crash into the very country it was intended to spy on. Created by the renowned Lockheed Corporation, the D-21 was the most advanced...

In an unprecedented achievement, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), in collaboration with the U.S. Air Force, has announced that through its “ACE” program the X-62A “VISTA” has become the first autonomous fighter jet in the world to successfully engage in aerial dogfighting maneuvers against a manned F-16. This historic event marks a significant milestone in applying artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in combat scenarios, highlighting a radical advancement in military aviation technology. “The X-62A Team demonstrated that cutting-edge machine learning-based autonomy could be safely used to fly dynamic combat maneuvers,” Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall...

American Airlines’ pilots union has reported a “significant spike” in safety issues, raising red flags over fewer routine aircraft inspections and shorter test flights on planes following major maintenance work. The Allied Pilots Association cited a slew of “problematic trends” in an email to members Saturday, noting a “significant spike in safety- and maintenance-related problems.”

The US Air Force has 140 of its biggest warplanes – its heavy bombers – in active service: 76 Boeing B-52Hs, 44 Boeing B-1Bs and 20 B-2 stealth bombers built by Northrop Grumman. .. Any other air force might content itself with 140 bombers and redistribute the lost bomber’s operating budget. But the US Air Force is counting on the B-1 to play a lead role in a possible air war over the Taiwan Strait. It’s such a high priority that the service is spending millions of dollars recovering, from long-term storage, a surplus B-1 nicknamed “Lancelot” that’s been sitting...

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the manufacturer after Sam Salehpour, a Boeing engineer of more than 10 years, spoke out. www.nytimes.com/2024/04/09/us/politics/boeing-787-dreamliner-whistle-blower.html Salehpour said that “the problems stemmed from changes in how the enormous sections were fitted and fastened together in the assembly line.” He added that the components of the fuselage all come from different manufacturers and are not all the same shape. www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/boeing-whistleblower-reportedly-claims-787-planes-could-break-apart-mid-air-due-to-construction-flaws/ar-BB1lpmsD