Washington State is showing signs of some real life in a slow ramp up to gain new aerospace business.
For years, nay, for decades, state politicians took Boeing for granted. Boeing officials complained and complained and complained about the need for better education, for smoother permitting processes, an onerous business climate and more. Officials warned over and over that they might move operations out of the state if things didn’t change.
When Boeing decided to move its corporate headquarters from Seattle to Chicago–with no notice to state officials it was even contemplating a move–politicians were shocked and called it a wake-up call.
Nothing happened. Officials hit the snooze button, turned over and went back to sleep.
Note: we refer Readers to this analysis with diagrams.
Note: The Wall Street Journal has this in-depth piece (found via Google News, so Readers should be able to access it) that says:
“What those systems are couldn’t immediately be determined. So-called remote-power distribution units, which act as substations for the 787’s electrical system, and remote-data concentrators, which help distribute data signals to systems from the jet’s central computer, are installed throughout the aircraft—including units next to one another in the ceiling of the jet near the last set of doors on the Dreamliner, where the fire damage appears;” and
There are a myriad of questions to answer in the July 12 fire of an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 787. Some probably are already known to investigators but most are not, and as yet the public hasn’t been informed by the British Air Accident Investigation Board (AAIB).
What we, the public, knows (or think we know) at this point is (in no particular order):
Here are the speculative rumors so far (that we have seen), (in no particular order):
Update, 12n PDT: The British Air Accident Investigation Board has issued its first press release. No apparent connection to the APU or batteries, but otherwise a standard we’re-working-on-it statement.
Unrelated to Ethiopian: Fascinating animations of the Asiana Flt 214 crash.
Original Post:
The origin of the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 787 fire remains unclear the day after the event.
The New York Times has a recap that’s the best we found early Saturday.
As could be expected, we received a lot of media calls asking about the impact to the 787, to Boeing and some even about aviation safety in general.
We urged media to be cautious about drawing conclusions, other than from the photos it certainly doesn’t appear to have any connection to the previous battery fires because of the location of the fire burn-through on the Ethiopian airplane. The batteries are located far away from the burn area.
The possibility of the fire originating in the aft crew rest area was debunked when The Wall Street Journal reported Ethiopian didn’t configure its 787s with a crew rest area in this location.
Other areas quickly circulating: the aft galley, the air conditioning unit (the Financial Times reported a problem with this aircraft’s AC unit, complete with sparks, had been observed eight hours previously), a general electrical system fault, human error of some kind, and more.
It’s all speculation at this stage. And none of it leads anywhere.
Boeing stock was off $8 in the immediate wake of the news and closed down $5. In after-hours trading it was up 3 cents. Wall Street clearly feared another battery fire at first. But as the day went on and initial facts became clear, analysts seemed unfazed.
We urge media to proceed cautiously in its reporting.
This will clearly be a test for Boeing’s Commercial Aviation Services unit, known as CAS. We reported for CNN how CAS prepared to fan out to install the batter fix and to repair the fire-damaged JAL 787. This fire damage is far worse, and it puts to the test not only CAS’s ability to repair this airplane but the entire Boeing claim that a composite fuselage can be repaired from major damage.
Being first is sometimes a bitch.
Boeing has paid dearly for being first with the innovations associated with the 787, both in design and in production. The entire industry will learn these lessons, and Airbus with the A350 isn’t far behind with its composite airplane. Although Airbus has taken a more conservative approach with the A350 in a number of areas, one has to wonder what unknown unknowns will lurk over this airplane.
Some people, including us, have been mildly critical of Boeing for not proceeding with new, composite airplanes to replace the 737 and the 777. Boeing says it wants to “harvest” the technologies of the 787 before taking the next step of all-new airplanes. Perhaps harvesting lessons learned is equally important.
Did Boeing try to do too much too soon with the 787? Perhaps. But this latest incident may be little more than some human-induced fire or something originating with a vendor-supplier component that has nothing to do with the design or the systems of the 787.
Still, it’s Boeing’s name on the side of the airplane and undoubtedly some segment of the flying public will see the headlines and avoid the airplane. The public relations damage is real and, having been in the communications business, we feel for Boeing’s Corp Com department.
Fire damage of the Ethiopian 787 via Twitter
Here’s a link to some photos.
Here’s a link to a Boeing document showing flammable areas on the 787.
New high-resolution image shows greater detail of fire damage, ribbing. via NYCAviation.
easyJet’s ‘neutral’ engine: We were amused at the Airbus photo release concerning easyJet firming up its orders for 100 A320neos, announced at the Paris Air Show. In the past, aviation geeks scrutinized the photos to see what engines were depicted to gain a clue if an engine order wasn’t announced with the airframe order. With the easyJet photo release, Airbus entitled it, Airbus “A320neo easyJet Neutral engines.”
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Airbus in Puget Sound: Next week the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance and the Washington Department of Commerce are hosting the first Airbus suppliers fair here in the State.
Boeing in Puget Sound: Meantime, the Puget Sound Business Journal has several articles about Boeing’s future here:
The South is Winning: Why Puget Sound keeps losing jobs
The South is Winning: New composites could hasten drift
The south is Winning: Could Washington become a Right-to-Work State?
There is also this editorial comment from The Everett Herald.
With a little free time, we’re catching up on the Asiana accident.’
Ernie Arvai sent us this link from The Atlantic which references several postings on a professional pilot forum, PPrune.
Several readers linked or sent us this article which is thorough enough that we’re elevating it to a prime position in a posting.
This article details some of the debrise found in the water and some more key facts about the final 1.20 minutes of the flight.
This article outlines some of the spinal and neck injuries incurred. These may be studied for future seat designs to increase safety.
The outcome-only two dead (as yet) and several still in critical condition is being hailed as testimony to aircraft safety and luck. There is no question aircraft accidents are more survivable today because of the safety advances. But if the 777 had come down on the seawall any further forward than it did, the outcome could have been far worse. This is the luck part. Professional flight attendants and passenger heroics also played a role in survivability. Itäs tragic that one of the two deaths appears to have come from a rescue vehicle accident.
An Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 crash-landed at San Francisco Airport Saturday, killing at least two. This is the first fatal crash involving a 777.
Investigators will certainly look at whether fuel line icing may be a factor, which was traced to be the cause of the only other 777 accident, British Airways at London several years ago, also a crash-landing situation. Early news reports seem to reflect a similarity in the flight profile between the two flights. As readers know, we’re traveling and we don’t have access to our files to determine if Asiana uses Rolls-Royce engines, which are those used on BA and which were susceptible to icing.
GE engines on the 777-300ER have more recently come under some scrutiny for issues, and we’d expect investigators to consider whether there is any connection if Asiana uses GE on its 777-200s. This would be a natural course of considering all possible factors.
Other factors that will be looked at: human error, mechanical problems and controlled flight into terrain (CFIT).
Update, 5pm GMT: With the knowledge now that the engines are PW, fuel icing as a cause seems pretty unlikely, but CVR and FDR readouts will indicate engine performance parameters. Although weather doesn’t appear to be a factor, it will be evaluated for the prospect of any clear air windshear or other conditions that could be a contributing cause.
Statements by the airline officials at this point that there wasn’t any pilot error or mechanical issues are entirely premature, given when the statements were made the data recorders hadn’t been recovered much less read.
Closely looking at a photo seems to indicate the aft pressure bulkhead in place, meaning the tail severed aft it it.
While on our SAS flight from Longyearbyen to Oslo, we browsed the SAS magazine airplane descriptions and it contained fuel burn per seat in litres for each fleet type.
SAS operates the 319/320/321 and 737-600/700/800. Seating is as follows:
A319: 141
737-700: 141
A320: 168
738: 186
SAS reports a mere 0.001 difference in fuel burn per seat per kilometer in litres in favor of Boeing in each case–despite the 738 having 18 more seats, in which case the difference could be expected to be much greater.
We found the data to be quite illuminating.
Fuel burn per seat per km, in litres:
A319: 0.033
737-700: 0.032
A320: 0.029
738: 0.028