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Dreamliner, "Cabriolet" Edition: Panel Falls Off Air India 787 Fuselage Mid-Flight
While everyone knows by now that the best place to cook eggs at 40,000 feet is on the Dreamliner battery compartment, little did anyone know that Boeing (which was just caught selling used parts as new to the Pentagon) has now put into circulation a new and improved version of the Dreamliner: the Cabriolet. This is what Air India discovered, much to its surprise, yesterday when an 8 by 4 foot panel on a Boeing 787 fuselage "flew off" on a routine Delhi to Bangalore flight.
The "detachable" component shown below:
Times of India reports on this latest debacle for the most accident prone "futuristic" airplane in history:
The Dreamliner 'miraculously' landed safely in Bangalore without the pilots realizing a thing. The gaping hole caused by the missing part — measuring 8 by 4 feet — was discovered when the plane was being prepared for the return flight to Delhi. The aviation safety regulator is investigating this incident.
The missing part was taken out of a brand new Dreamliner (VT-ANO), AI's 9th B-787 which had landed here just days back and is awaiting certification to begin commercial flying, and taken to Bangalore. Only after this part was fitted in the aircraft grounded in Bangalore (VT-ANA) could the plane fly again after a delay of almost 10 hours. However, now the brand new "Christmas tree" VT-ANO is grounded in Delhi, awaiting the part from Boeing!
This is hardly the extent of Dreamliner issues experienced by the Indian airline company:
But even after the aircraft resumed flying, airlines have been reporting troubles with it. AI recently had oven overheating in its aircraft and then the electric systems of ovens were changed in all its B-787. AI flies this aircraft on both domestic and international routes. It flies on Delhi-Bangalore, Delhi-Chennai and Delhi-Kolkata routes apart from long-haul flights between Delhi and London, Frankfurt, Paris and Australia. AI's turnaround banks heavily on this plane.
Of course, the ATA and all other regulators will turn a blind eye to this, and all other recent, accidents involving Boeing's prized aircraft: after all the last thing the US can afford is a collapse in Durable Goods orders at a time when everything and the kitchen sink is thrown into making the US economy appear strong. That, and of course, the fear of what might happen to BA stock again should the Dreamliner have to be grounded once again. So until such time as the numerous accidents plaguing the aircraft actually results in casualties, all is well.
But as usual, we have saved the best news for last: the Dreamliner Cabriolet "option" from Boeing does not cost one penny extra.
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Hey Gupta....look another baggage compartment! No my friend...that is the fresh air circulator.
And in other news...a man awoke to find a strange monolith had crashed into his bedroom.
http://www.collativelearning.com/PICS%20FOR%20WEBSITE/stills%202/2001_a_...
A 4' by 8' section, huh? The exact size of a sheet of plywood.
"Hey, I got an idea how we can fix this, Raj. Hand me that nail gun and a can of paint. You start fueling her up, this won't take long."
That removable section may be the parachuting hatch for the pilots. The design modification was demanded by the pilots union after all the thermal issues.
Needless to say the number of chutes available is limited to the maximum possible number of crew members.
Reminds me of Wall St.
Aw.. stuff falls off of airplanes all the time.
That one looks like a nifty way to keep the batteries cool, though.
The question is was that a Dzus Fastener panel or riveted?
If it was a removable panel, then it is likely a ground maintenance issue.
If riveted, it will be a bitch to go back and inspect every freaking 787 rivet as that would indicate a QC problem in manufacture.
It might not be Boeing’s problem.
After a real close look at that picture and the size and spacing of the holes, it looks removable to me.
Gee, then again it could be a design issue.. that would be a really big removable piece.
Exactly what I was thinking. The tech probably had to run to the bathroom halfway through tightening it down to deal with the cholera dwelling in his digestive system.
who flies on that aircraft these days? answer: the same folks who consume pacific sushi...
.
.
Thank goodness Boeing doesn't make submarines.
The fastener recepticles at the front of the pic look like Dzus fasteners (bigger than standard nutplates for screws). I don't see anything like that at the back though. Cessna 650s (Cit IIIs and VIIs) have belly panels that slide into a fairing slot at the front and screwed down along the sides and back. Maybe this is like that? Regardless of the cause, It's pretty inexcusable to be losing pieces of the aircraft that are that big.
I've worked on aircraft with these types of people (ethnicities) before...the outcome of this incident WILL shock you, (cue Indian voice) "I am telling you, quite fucking frankly, and I swear to all the Gods, that I did not touch that panel".
I have only a few questions, which will show you just how dumb this incident really is.
If the panel was lost in mid-flight and a new panel (cannibalised) was used from another aircraft, and fitted WITHOUT ANY REPAIRS BEING REQUIRED, logically means that NONE of the original panel's Dzus fasteners had engaged the female receptacles.
Countersunk Dzus: http://navyaviation.tpub.com/14018/img/14018_67_1.jpg
My question: How can a 4' x 8' composite panel be mounted to the underneath surface of an aircraft without it falling to the ground if the fasteners did not engage? Remember, no damage means no engagement of the Dzus fasteners.
......Fucking Gaffa Tape?.......Fucking red electrical tape? (to hide the red panel on a red finishing scheme)......or are the panels so tight (unlikely looking at the Dzus mounting flanges) that the panel can be held in place without fasteners engaged, and the Dzus screws are so tight or short that they do not engage properly (seen this many times but only the odd one or two, not 40 of the bastards).
I'm guessing someone wanted to take a sneak peek inside the belly and since Dzus fastened panels are quickly removed and refitted, they chose that particular panel. This would still take at least two people to do.
How the fuck did these Indians do this? Why the fuck are retards working on aircraft?
This is India we're talking about here. It was probably pulled off by airport urchins and sold for scrap.
It spun down and landed on the beach at Alang.
it looks like that's an field repair hatch, i suspect you open it for a B or C Check and can change out
some boxes behind it.
that they got the plane back in flight service indicates it wasn't a safety of flight issue.
agreed.. big holes.. clean separation,
So maybe replace a few broken receptacles, air freight in a new panel and then go punch more holes in the sky.
i am a bit susipicious of a single 4 by 8 foot Dzus fastened pannel, unless the fasteners are designed to float around to accomidated for thermal expansion/contraction...
At least it is always sunny above the clouds ...
Nightmareliner
Bad riveting too? Not good at all.
Too many kinks, not enough revenue.
Bad Boeing..
I call SABOTAGE by Airbus cronies!
Captain Kirk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlOTRxt-dIw
Come on guys, you didn't read the memo.....this is the new battery cooling feature to prevent spontaneous fires in the battery compartment!
Look, people, it's Air India. Third-world maintenance practices using third-world labor. And you're surprised the aircraft is falling apart just a few months after it was delivered??
That's the improved in-flight "cooling" feature.
Now if they can find that panel and sell it to .gov.
i believe when the bottom falls out like this, passengers are to help slow the plane with their feet....a la Fred Flintstone. This helps to save us from the harmful effects of burning rubber and the massive carbon release it creates.
best, Al Gore
I'd rather fly on an old MD-80 anyday over this thing.
THEY GOT IT COVERED!!! DON'T WORRY!!!
WHY ELSE DO YOU THINK THEY PUT SEATBELTS IN THOSE PLANES?!?!
Waddya mean ... this is a very robust plane. Parts fall off, and it still flies fine. No one even notices.
That'll buff right out.
Boeing began off-shoring parts manufacturing a decade ago. It doesn't seem to be working out very well...
Boeing has been subbing out manufacturing for a hell of a lot longer than a decade. It's REQUIRED by the purchasers, many of whom are GOVERNMENT-OWNED airlines from countries that insist on getting a slice of the manufacturing pie in order to make the purchase at all.
Airbus does the same exact thing. Frequently an order will hinge upon which company allows bigger offsets.
Well, if the pilots don't even realize the loss of this part during normal flight - it may be superfluous anyways.
Boeing's response:
"You're flying it wrong" and "We didn't build that".
Stoopid Sheeple
I can't wait for the ragtop option...
You wont need ice with your in flight beverage.
that would be blue ice
DON'T WORRY!! IT'S STILL GOOD!!
A 5$ DISCOUNT ON THE FIRST 10000 TICKETS WILL SOLVE ALL ISSUES!!
union craftsmanship....from some of the same unions that took hostages and cut the brake lines of locomotives during a labor dispute.
MADE IN INDIA!!!
THE BEST OF QUALITY MONEY CAN BUY!!
MADE BY THE SMALLEST HANDS A 5 YEAR OLD HAS!!!
HOW ELS DO YOU THINK THEY FIT THOSE TINY PARTS??!
CRAFTMANSHIP INDEED!!
Now you buy?
The military industrial complex tit Boeing sucks on clearly comes at the expense of R&D on the commercial side of their business.
Don't blame unions. Boeings are repaired and maintained in Ethiopia. They don't have unions there.
since when are out walls maintenance parts? do those regularly get replaced? are there any moving parts?
appreciate your desire to stick up for the unions that built these planes.....but doubt that is a wear part or requires any maintenance.
Uh no the Dreamliner is more an example of the wonders of outsourcing than "union craftsmanship". I am guessing you have not read anything about the peculiar supply chain that Boeing is utilizing for its 787 that makes it so "special". Not to meant as a blanket defense of unions, but those old union-built 707s, 727s, 747s, 737s, ect. never seemed to have these kind of problems. And why you are comparing this to an unrelated instance of cutting brake lines in locomotives I have no idea.
Boeing 787 Dreamliner
Australia, Canada, England, France, Italy, Korea, Japan, Sweden, and the US all supply parts for the Dreamliner.
Its like HP seling printers at below cost..they make the money on the INK..the parts sold after....
Damn right, printers are the biggest ripoff...a new one prints about 10 pages before the 'low ink' light is flashing and you have to buy 5 more cartridges.
What are you printing? Poster-sized screenshots from porn vids perhaps?
If you print docs, switch to LaserJet.
you believe those marketing tricks? :)
Like the Xbox, I think that box is pretty expensive for what it is.... sold below cost... YEAH RIGHT!!!
They even tried the trick with the iPhones :) Nobody really bought it because the competition sold phones at 1/3 of apples price.
YOU MUST BUY IT BECAUSE WE'RE LOSING MONEY ON IT!! IT'S VALUE IS WAY HIGHER THAN WHAT WE ASK!!!
AND IF YOU BUY 2 YOU GET A FREE PIG... WITCH ALSO COST US MONEY...
The wicked witch, eh? I see what you did there :)
Which would explain all the discarded pigs in the river.
"There's never been a better time then now ...."
Someone is going to have a nice roof !!!
They simply drop off gold before customs inspection
Tyler, et.al.
Just now got an email from the Associate Administrator of SNAP Program of USDA about the letter regarding cuts posted here yesterday:
Quote:
"At this point, USDA has not instructed States to withhold November benefits from participants. The letter to States regarding November issuance files deals with an automated transmission between states and EBT vendors that could happen as early as October 15th, not with the issuance of November benefits. Based on the current uncertainty, USDA has directed States to hold November issuance files in order to preserve maximum flexibility as we consider possible options should the lapse in funding continue."
Have a screen capture if interested, or could forward email if you want to verify.
If they can afford POMO they can afford everything!!! thieving bastards
Yes, and if they can bailout banks and corporations why cut food assistance?
I'm still waiting for my $3 Million stimulus bailout check from the FED.
Jacob Lew says that the Fed Gov't systems have to make all payments or no payments.... can't just shut one of the payment streams down. So .... food assistance will only be stopped if the US defaults right?
Sounds like the company that built that system built ObamaCare website.
One day we'll see the 'wing fell off' story on these piles of junk. But none of that matters, we got U.S. stawks!
Looks like panel is attached with camlocks. This could have been installed poorly. Kinda hard to blame the camlocks for not being locked, but the pilot should have seen on his walkthrough. Unless, maintence accessed panel after engines started and left some of the locks not in the locked position.
The pilots do cabin preflight checklists, company engineers do the preflight external check. New jet. Looks like they didn't know what to look for.
In the world of aviation BEFORE food stamp credit cards, when a babay mama had to actually tear out a paper coupon and HAND it to the cashier at the supermarket, a process that hurt her self esteem and caused damage to her two inch false fingernails with hand-painted pictures of PitBull on them...
in that hazy world of the distant past, as a co-pilot, I had to do a pre-flight walkaround of the airplane, in the snow, darkness, or freezing cold, while the captain did... well whatever he did, like sign the fuel receipts.
The airplane was a 1948 Convair CV-240, or a DC-super-3 (bigger engines and tail) of roughly the same vintage. The only thing that fell out of these airplanes was piss, because we had to walk back to the cargo door and urinate out of the cracks between the door and the fuselage, where the slipstream sucked the urine out and along the bottom of the fuselage. The chief mechanic claimed the urine was going to corrode the aluminum, but there were no changes until empty-kitchen pilots began to show up and compained their plumbing was not adequate for pissing out of cargo doors. That was when the company installed a big, oval shaped funnel and a tube that extended through the floor for the comfort of such pilots.
lol classic, and I thought I was being a bit naughty pissing into empty poweraid bottles on cross-country flights. Boogles the mind how female pilots do it. Maybe this is how Howard Hughs developed that particular bad habit?
Comments from the linked article:
"This panel is held on with quick release fasteners which are pretty strong, considering the large number of them and no visible damage to the mounting surfaces I think it is safe to assume based off my thirty years working in aviation maintenance, the panel was temp installed by the tech with a few fasteners it was then forgot and took off this way. To blame anybody but the guy who worked on this and the crew who performed the pre-flight is pure ignorance."
"Having been involved with aviation maintenance for the past thirty years any seasoned Engineer can look at this picture and make a pretty good educated guess as to what happened. The Panel is obviously held on with quick release fasteners of some type as this panel is removed to routinely check items in this compartment. My theory is this panel was temp installed with only a few of the required fasteners and was forgot by the person involved, it is scary but it happens. As there is no visible damage to the mounting surfaces I would almost guarantee this is what happened."
Fuck - looks like they are not going to find my lost bags now.
And Delta will keep you in the gate for two hours because a seat won't properly recline. Go figure.
More Exceptionalism or a drug drop?
I have chosen flights based on the airplane. I avoid the Dreamliner. I like the 777 and will fly any Airbus. You will not get me on board of a Dreamliner even if it were free.
While the parts are assembled buy the individual companies (which led to this failure) I can almost assure you those same panels are sold to all the airlines.
Ladies & Gentleman, this is your Capitan speaking. For all passengers departing to Nagpur and surrounding areas. We expect your drop point in the next ten minutes. If this is your final destination, please press your flight attendant button to seek aid in suiting up your parachute. Again, thank you for flying India Air where our customers can experience non-stop flight destination service.
/sarc
Strike her!
The closest I've ever felt to dying was on an Air India flight from Delhi to Calcutta. This is saying a lot because I'm a former Marine Infantryman and Embassy Guard. I flew around in Chinooks pretty frequently, and fast roped out of a few. I was on the wrong end of a 12-GA shotgun once, wielded by a meth addict when I was a PI. I've slid down dry grass while free climbing on a cliff, and jumped out of planes. The Air India flight made me scared. I should've known when there were hardly any Indians on the flight, and this was the equivalent of a 747. It was monsoon season, and I had a window seat. I would have never guessed that wings could flex that much. I was pretty sure one of them would snap off.
"But as usual, we have saved the best news for last: the Dreamliner Cabriolet "option" from Boeing does not cost one penny extra."
And if you account for the money received after suing BA when you're loved ones have died, you'll end up making money. #WINNING
Tis but a scratch.
on the weekly chart, Boeing is still at its all-time high.
reality and stock markets have not had much correlation in some time now.
It's cool, you don't need that bit.
I think targa is more appropriate.
Ahh.. DreamLiner. Built by Boing Boing, named by AirBus.
A proud product of USSA exceptionalism.
Exceptionally late, exceptionally poor build quality, and exceptionally poor public image.
I look forward to seeing that exceptionally well connected Kenyan Diktator use one as Air Crash One.
regards
8 feet by 4 feet?
Hard to believe that Engineers in the 21st century still use Imperial/English units.
For better or worse, the Engineering/Scientific community runs on metric. An Engineer who uses feet-inches/pounds-ounces/farenheit, does so at their peril.
yeah that's the problem
Changing the unit of measure doesn’t correct the Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) study.
It's like they're channeling Aeroflot from the 80's.
#1 in customer service! Can you imagine how pissed the passengers are?
The Dreamliner takes off and off and off......
Air India will now charge for these POSH seats to all Brits. Bankers from BOE are welcome.
It's just a "glitch".... Apple has glitches too.....
I think instead of "Cabriolet" the correct term would be "phaeton"
A Cabriolet is more of a single seat "Roadster" A sedan convertable is a Phaeton.
Clarke and Dawe: The Front FellOff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM&list=FLHfEj2aSixXVGD8shybcevg...
I bet the worker has stock in Airbus
Some Indian technician decided it was time for a new roof for his hut ...
The Chinese did it.
Outsourcing is great!
Do I see a guy in a red sleeping bag in that picture? Is that brother Ashok coming form Delhi to visit me in Bangalore???
The name of the game in aviation engineering is to shed weight. Normally this is not done during flight.
I suspect the panel's load rating capacity was exceed when some gold was stashed away prior to departure.
But, but, it's made in the USA, LOL. Or was it only "designed" in the USA? It just ain't got that same ring as it use to have.