Pennsylvania Man Charged In Military Helicopter Sabotage

A Pennsylvania man has been arrested and charged in the purposeful and malicious act of damaging parts on a helicopter slated for military use. The damage was discovered before delivery to the military. The article calls this vandalism, but I'd suggest that it was sabotage and should be treated as such:

Prosecutors say 32-year-old assembly line worker Matthew Kevin Montgomery was charged with cutting the wires on an H-47 Chinook helicopter. U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan says investigators are still trying to determine who damaged a second helicopter at the plant.

Two workers found what the company called irregularities in the helicopters last week.

The Chinook is the Army's workhorse aircraft and is used to move troops and supplies. Boeing is producing new Chinooks for the Army, as well as updating older models. The military has not grounded any helicopters now in use.

Had the damage gone undetected, it is possible that the helicopters could have crashed and caused serious injury or death to those on board.

UPDATE:
Apparently the guy was disgruntled over a job transfer. That's why he purposefully cut 70 bundles of wires. Again, the AP refers to this as vandalism, even though he was sabotaging the airworthiness of the helicopter he was working on. The helicopter would have been unable to fly as a result of the damage done.

Investigators are still looking into who sabotaged a second helicopter at the plant.

Why Did British Airways Flight 38 Crash?

All the heroics of the flight crew aside, the real question is why did the British Airways Boeing 777 lose power to both of its engines with less than 2 minutes before landing at Heathrow Airport outside London?

Investigators have little to go on at this point.

Theories about the cause of the crash include mechanical or electronic failure, or water somehow contaminating the fuel. Aviation sources at Manchester Airport said a BA ground engineer told them: "We've been told to carry out checks to make sure that any water in our fleet's fuel tanks is removed. Water contamination is a constant and common problem in fuel."

Air accident investigators said yesterday that the plane had been on autopilot and autothrottle at 600ft, over West Hounslow, and in its landing approach after a normal and uneventful flight. At that point, the autothrottle had demanded an "increase in thrust", meaning more power, from the engines but they failed to respond.

With time running out, the flight crew then tried to move the throttle levers manually and the engines again failed to respond.

By then, the plane was seconds from the ground with Mr Coward at the controls and so sudden and dramatic was the failure that the crew did not have time to sound a warning. It would have taken less than 40 seconds for the plane to travel the last two miles.

It's a mysterious crash that has ramifications for the rest of the industry if the plane lost power for some reason other than water contamination in the fuel systems.

Boeing's Dreamliner A Nightmare In Disguise?

I've been critical of Airbus in the past for missing production deadlines with its A380 superjumbo, but Boeing has succumbed to delays as well on its 787 Dreamliner.

After a six-month delay announced last October, Boeing had been aiming to start test-flying the new midsize, long-haul plane by the end of March and deliver the first one to Japan’s All Nippon Airways Co. by the end of the year.

The new schedule calls for test flights to begin by late June. The company did not say how soon in 2009 it believes it can start delivering the plane, which has won more than 800 orders so far.

One of the first key milestones for the first plane — turning on its power — has been delayed until early in the second quarter, said Pat Shanahan, general manager of the 787 program. After that, it will take two to three months to run all the ground tests needed before the plane can fly.

Carson said the delay will prevent the company from meeting its ambitious goal of delivering 109 planes by the end of next year. He said the company will spend the next few months analyzing the status of the program before specifying how much it is lowering that target.

This is going to hit the company hard on its bottom line, and airlines may reconsider purchases down the road if the company can't meet its deadlines.

One of the reasons for the delays is the inability to get parts from its multiple subcontractors - including fasteners needed to link together pieces of the fuselage.