Boeing may deliver Dreamliner 787 to Air India next week

September 20, 2012
Los Angeles, September 20: Boeing Co plans to deliver the first Dreamliner 787 made in South Carolina next week, a jet equipped with an engine model that recently experienced failures and has drawn federal scrutiny.

The North Charleston-built jet, for Air India, is "ticketed" and certified by the Federal Aviation Administration, which means it is ready for delivery, a Boeing official said on Wednesday. Its General Electric Co GEnx engines also have undergone special inspection, the official said, after the failures raised concerns.

Delivery from the second Boeing plant to make Dreamliners marks an important milestone for a jet that has been beset by assembly problems that caused huge cost overruns and delays.

Carbon composites that replaced aluminum on the jet reduced its weight and cut fuel consumption 20% compared with other planes its size on similar routes - savings prized by airline customers eager to tame soaring fuel bills. But the delays have damaged Boeing's credibility with customers, making the first delivery from the second line all the more meaningful. The engine problems could have caused further delays.

The special engine inspections came after recent incidents in two Boeing 787s in which the fan midshaft on General Electric GEnx-1B engines fractured or showed cracks. On September 14, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended immediate safety inspections.

One of the incidents took place in July at Charleston International Airport when debris from the engine of a Boeing 787 sparked a grass fire near the runway where it was taxiing.

Earlier Wednesday, the FAA told Reuters it would stop short of issuing an emergency directive on the engines, sticking instead to more routine safety notices.

"We have done the checks on all our GE engines," Jack Jones, vice president and general manager of Boeing South Carolina, said Wednesday at an international trade conference near Charleston.

"We're clear and we're good," he told Reuters. "GE has done a great job of figuring out quickly what we have to do to ensure the integrity of the engine. We know that and we've implemented it."

Jones said the engine issue had not affected its schedule of delivering planes. "It obviously didn't stop deliveries. That is absolutely critical."

"Trust me, with GE, FAA, regulatory, Boeing, we would never have let that engine go on an airplane if we even slightly suspected it. So we know it's safe." He said the plane maker "is in probably one of the most highly regulated industries in the U.S."

The plane was finished and the planned delivery next week was timed to suit the customer, Jones said.

Two 787s built at Boeing's Everett, Washington, plant have already been delivered to Air India - one earlier this month and one on Tuesday, both from the South Carolina facility.

Boeing South Carolina, which is currently building a 787 widebody jet every 18 days at its North Charleston final assembly plant, has 6,100 employees including about 200 on the flight line, Jones said.

The production rate will rise to three-and-a-half airplanes a month "later," Jones said. The plant also builds 787 aft fuselages for Boeing's Puget Sound final assembly plant.

"Not just here in South Carolina but in Puget Sound, we're all really focused on production rate because the production rates in several of our plants are going up to unprecedented levels," he said.

Boeing shares fell 0.8% to close at USD 69.90 on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

Boeing_787-8_Air-India



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Agencies
March 8,2020

Washington, Mar 8: An attendee at last week's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which also saw the participation of US President Donald Trump, has tested positive for COVID-19, the American Conservative Union (ACU) said.

The exposure occurred prior to the conference held in National Harbor, Maryland, just south of Washington D.C., Xinhua news agency quoted the ACU as saying in a statement on Saturday.

A New Jersey hospital tested the person, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the positive result, said the statement.

"The individual is under the care of medical professionals in the state of New Jersey, and has been quarantined," it said.

Trump and Vice President Mike Pence spoke at the gathering, which took place from February 26-29.

Also present at the event were a number of administration and cabinet officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, and newly-appointed White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement Saturday that the White House was aware of the development.

"At this time there is no indication that either President Trump or Vice President Pence met with or were in close proximity to the attendee," Grisham said in a statement.

"The President's physician and US Secret Service have been working closely with White House Staff and various agencies to ensure every precaution is taken to keep the First Family and the entire White House Complex safe and healthy."

The news emerged as Washington D.C. and neighbouring state of Virginia respectively confirmed their first cases of COVID-19 on Saturday.

In a press conference on Saturday night, Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said a resident in his 50s showed symptoms of a respiratory virus in February. He was admitted to a hospital in the District on March 5.

The patient had no history of recent international travel, nor had he been exposed to anyone who was confirmed to be infected, according to Bowser.

The Mayor said D.C. health authorities were investigating the man's contact with other people before he went to the hospital.

A US Marine assigned to Fort Belvoir in Fairfax County, Virginia, tested positive on Saturday for COVID-19 and is currently being treated at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, according to a Pentagon spokesman.

"The Marine recently returned from overseas where he was on official business," tweeted Jonathan Rath Hoffman, adding that Secretary of Defence Mark Esper and the White House have been briefed.

As of Saturday night, more than 420 cases of COVID-19 were reported in the US with 17 deaths, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

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News Network
July 26,2020

Seoul, Jul 26: North Korean authorities have imposed a lockdown on the border city of Kaesong after discovering what they called the country's first suspected case of the novel coronavirus, state media reported Sunday.

Leader Kim Jong Un convened an emergency politburo meeting on Saturday to implement a "maximum emergency system and issue a top-class alert" to contain the virus, official news agency KCNA said.

If confirmed, it would be the first officially recognised COVID-19 case in the North where medical infrastructure is seen as woefully inadequate for dealing with any epidemic.

KCNA said a defector who had left for the South three years ago returned on July 19 after "illegally crossing" the heavily fortified border dividing the countries.

But there have been no reports in the South of anyone leaving through what is one of the world's most secure borders, replete with minefields and guard posts.

Pyongyang has previously insisted not a single case of the coronavirus had been seen in the North despite the illness having swept the globe, and the country's borders remain closed.

The patient was found in Kaesong City, which borders the South, and "was put under strict quarantine", as would anybody who had come in close contact, state media said.

It was a "dangerous situation... that may lead to a deadly and destructive disaster", the media outlet added.

Kim was quoted as saying "the vicious virus could be said to have entered the country", and officials on Friday took the "preemptive measure of totally blocking Kaesong City".

The nuclear-armed North closed its borders in late January as the virus spread in neighbouring China and imposed tough restrictions that put thousands of its people into isolation, but analysts say the North is unlikely to have avoided the contagion.

South Korea is currently recording around 40 to 60 cases a day.

Earlier this month Kim warned against any "hasty" relaxation of anti-coronavirus measures, indicating the country will keep its borders closed for the foreseeable future.

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News Network
July 14,2020

Washington, Jul 14: The United States has the biggest Covid-19 testing programme in the world, better than big countries like Russia, China, India and Brazil, President Donald Trump said on Monday, asserting that America has "just about the lowest mortality rate" due to the disease in the world.

"We have one of the lowest mortality rates anywhere," Trump said at a White House roundtable. More than 34 lakh Americans have tested positive for Covid-19 so far and over 1,37,000 have died due to the disease, both of which are the largest numbers among all the countries.

The huge number of positive cases, the president said, is due to the massive testing efforts undertaken by his administration, more extensive than any other country.

"We test more than anybody by far. And when you test, you create cases. So we have created cases. I can tell you that some countries, they test when somebody walks into a hospital sick or walks into maybe a doctor's office, but usually a hospital. That is the testing they do, so they do not have cases, whereas we have all these cases. So, it is a double-edged sword," he said.

At the same time, the United States has the lowest mortality rate or just about the lowest mortality rate due to the disease in the world, Trump added. "We are doing a great job. We are doing very well with vaccines and we are doing very, very well with therapeutics. I think we are going to have some very good information coming out soon," he said in response to a question.

"But we have the best and certainly, by far, the biggest testing programme anywhere in the world. If you tested China or Russia or any of the larger countries, if you just tested India, as an example, the way we test, you would see numbers that would be very surprising. Brazil too. You know, Brazil is going through a big problem, but they do not do testing like we do," Trump said.

"So we do the testing and by doing the testing, we have tremendous numbers of cases. As an example, we have done 45 million tests. If we did half that number, you would have half the cases probably -- around that number. If we did another half of that, you would have half the numbers. Everyone would be saying, 'Oh, we are doing so well on cases'," he added.

Responding to a question, Trump said what China did to the world should not be forgotten.

"I think what China has done to the world with what took place -- the China plague -- you can call it the China virus, you can call it whatever you want to call it. It has about 20 different names. What they did to the world should not be forgotten," he said.

The trade deal with China that was signed early this year remains intact, the president said. "It is intact, they (China) are buying. Whether they buy or not, that is up to them. They are buying," he said.

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