787 unsafe, claims former Boeing engineer A former Boeing engineer claims the 787 Dreamliner is unsafe, and that in the event of a crash its innovative composite material fuselage would "shatter too easily and burn with toxic fumes", the Seattle Times reports. Boeing's 787 Dreamliner. Photo: Boeing Vince Weldon was sacked in July 2006 from his post as senior aerospace …
Just because the 787 will be Boeing's first airplane with large amounts of composite materials it doesn't mean that the industry doesn't have plenty of experience with the concept.
Airbus aircraft have had significant composite content for years. So most of the complaints are demonstrably false.
Remarkably, the "lightning strike" issue has already been covered on the ten o'clock(ish) BBC or ITV news a few weeks back. It's important: lightning strikes are remarkably frequent up there, and the aircraft structure has to be able to easily survive them. With all-metal structures it's tried tested and proven (albeit not necessarily *easy*). With composites? Who knows, and in particular who knows after a couple of years in service. The snippet of lightning-strike-related film showing the after effects on an allegedly relevant piece of composite didn't look too good for Boeing.
...because an ex-employee who was sacked is blatantly a trustworthy source of information.
Isn't it better to let the FAA decide it's safe to fly as it has seeing as they're an impartial third party that is responsible for dealing with air crashes and air safety than some grudge bearing ex-employee.
...about as impartial as the Food & Drug Administration !
Boeing are a major defence contractor / supplier for the US Gov, so a few more civillian deaths can be swept under the carpet if / when it happens.
They'll probably blame <pick a country* with oil> for a "terrorist attack" as an excuse to start another war !
*not Saudi, it'll never be Saudi...
The problem clearly is due to the lack of the regular number of front-mounted laser devices - so of course it's unsafe.
It will shatter and burn with toxic fumes you say? Obviously that is a small price to pay for putting large numbers of Boeing engineers on laser gun building duty - after all that's a sweet 1/2 billion in the bank, more than enough to pay the compensation required for the deaths of a few plebs.
Anyhow, it's only going to shatter and choke to death any survivors in a cloud of toxic gas if it crashes. Simply stick on the laser to protect it from Al Qaeda's deadly arsenal of, erm, hand thrown IEDs, and hire pilots that prefer to wait until AFTER flying before they hit the bottle.
Sorted.
Lightning strike issues were extensively investigated back when the Beechcraft Starship was being tested. That was 20 years ago. There's also a lot of experience with composites in military aircraft. I have to think that this is a solved problem.
I also can't get too worked up about the "toxic fumes" issue considering the *inside* of any aircraft is loaded with stuff that gives off toxic fumes when it burns. If a fire breaks out, I'm not sure it matters that much whether you're in an aluminum roasting pan or a composite one.
No one complains about the Gulfstream exec jets with a complete composite fuse, or any advanced Airbus/EU Consortium products doing the same. But let a truly competitive American design come out and the American media leads the naysayers' charge, screaming' and woe-betiding and cries for the fanciful catastrophe yet to come. Suicidal media, or misplaced (easily purchased?) alliances?
Also, considering how hard it is to be fired from Boeing with all the Union rules, this guy must be a piece of work to actually have been eliminated. While i was there, theft, sexual/racial harassment, violence, sleeping on the job-these were all par for the course activities that happened all the time and usually rated a suspension or some time off without pay. Big stuff like industrial espionage would get ya canned real fast though-and someone working for another company/government would have no problem using his dubious credentials in a smear campaign since his usefulness as an insider had come to an end.
The interior furnishings on present airliners, namely the passenger service units, overhead luggage bins, seats and headrests are made of plastics which generally produce very toxic smoke in fires. I don't imagine this is going to change with the new plane. So even if the hull adds to the problem, it may not be by much- and if other properties of the plastic hull make such a crash less likely, the benefit could still outweigh the disadvantage. Both the plastic hull and the plastic interiors were selected for weight/mass savings, which translate into fuel & money savings.
On the other hand, I am worried about a compressed 6-month test schedule. By definition, they're missing a couple of seasons, which strikes me as important to an all-weather aircraft. (Anyone know about a southern hemisphere test?)
For those who haven't been to Washington, it's possible to hit pretty much every season you could imagine in a week or two. You want hot dry heat? Fly over to Moses Lake on a nice day. You want nasty clouds and sleet? Fly over the cascades on your way to Moses Lake on a nasty day. You want fog and rain? Fly back from Moses Lake to Boeing Field. Heavier rain? Fly over the Olympic Peninsula. There are very few climates/seasons that can't be had in a day or two in this crazy state. A week ago, it was summer. Last Saturday we had Autumn, and now it's Winter. If they really want to test it in the cold, they can fly it up to Alaska. Heat? Take a trip down to Arizona. Yeah, you could say I'm not too worried about the compressed testing schedule.
Douglas. They tested their planes to the max and that is why there are still DC-3s -4s, -5s and so on in operation and their old Boeing counterparts are scrap metal.
Their passanger planes were sunk by single stupid mechanic and equally idiotic airline execs making choises about which engines they wanted for they planes (cheapest of course).
Left couple of planes crashing on film and that was it. Thought an important lesson to remaining aircraft builders: Testing budget is not as important as PR-budget.
Up until the 1980's, F1 cars were made of aluminium and plenty of drivers crashed them, with fatal results. These days they're made from composites, plenty of drivers crash them and walk away afterwards.
Someone's missed something, and I think it may be Boeing Bloke rather than me.
All interior products used in a commercial aircraft have to pass certain FST (Fire, Smoke, Toxicity) tests as described in the Federal Airworthiness Requirements (FARs) part 145. To pass the test, they cannot sustain a fire, or, if in a burning environment, are limited to the amount of smoke and toxic fumes they can produce.
It is a lottery, but there are many cases where a crash would have been survivable had a fire, external to the aircraft, not breached the fuselage structure. I'd be interested to see what specific tests Boeing will be doing and how many of the results will be 'fudged' to ensure certification.
Shortage of fasteners? It's plastic! Why don't they glue it together?
Good God, some Americans are touchy these days. Say anything nasty about anything remotely American, and it's immediately obvious (to them) that you're lieing just to because you hate America.
So clearly, this article isn't anti-Boeing, it's anti-American.
It isn't a dispassionate article about one man's claims, it's anti-American.
That one man is neither a disgruntled ex-employee, nor a courageous whistle-blower, he's anti-American.
Mr Brasche, I have to ask, are you one of those people who believes that 65% of Americans are anti-American? (I'm not saying you are, I'm just asking...)
from: http://www.netcomposites.com/news.asp?3306
"Research at Farnborough in the 1990's indicated that if carbon fibre composite material is shattered in the absence of fire there will be little or no release of respirable fibres. If you burn carbon fibre composite material without subjecting it to high energy impact there will be little or no release of respirable fibres. However, if you subject carbon fibre composite material to high energy impact while simultaneously burning it with a high temperature flame - typically 1000ºC (typical aircraft crash conditions) significant quantities of respirable fibres may be released."
But the best bit:
"Post Crash Management Systems highlight that whilst they are aware of the hazards of carbon fibre particles following an impact and fire situation, the company are still investigating and evaluating the effects of carbon fibres on the resipratory system. To this end John Andrews would welcome any suggestions or information from members of the composites industry dealing with carbon fibre."
"Douglas. They tested their planes to the max and that is why there are still DC-3s -4s, -5s and so on in operation and their old Boeing counterparts are scrap metal."
Shame about the DC-10
Or, more specifically, the bolts holding the engines on.
Anyway, the cause of most crashes is a failure of the nut holding the wheel.
Mr Larrington seems to forget that a F1 car carries like 100L of fuel tops, and the tank is designed and protected to reduce chance of breaking it.
A 787 will potentially be carrying over 120,000L of fuel, and a butt load of it is carried in the parts most vulnerable during a crash (the wings).
"But let a truly competitive American design come out and the American media leads the naysayers' charge, screaming' and woe-betiding and cries for the fanciful catastrophe yet to come."
Probably not the best choice of words to make your point given that "competitive" is usually synonymous with "knocked up on the cheap for maximum profit".
"While i was there, theft, sexual/racial harassment, violence, sleeping on the job-these were all par for the course activities that happened all the time and usually rated a suspension or some time off without pay."
Oh wow! I realy want to fly in one of your ex-employer's aeroplanes, now! Which one were you? Wally or Dilbert?
The real issue appears to be the structural strength of the material itself. Yes, small executive jets and military jets have been made from this stuff, but nothing on the scale of the 787's dimensions has been tried before, and a certain amount of evidence exists to show that the air-worthiness tests are being rigged. You might have been asleep, while all that was going on, of course.
"The only thing that matters to the airline industry is the price of oil and profit. I am still waiting to read the FAA report on how an airliner can crash into the Pentagon, leave no wing damage to the building or debris after the incident. So who's pocket are they in?"
May I suggest you fly a plane into a building at a few hundred mph? There was plenty of debris but it aint gonna fall neatly outside the building at those speeds, it's going to plough right inside the building kinda like, it well, did.
Furthermore you expect there to be a nice little wing shaped gouge through the building leaving a cross shaped entry point? Anyone who's flown has seen how flexible aircraft wings are as they bend - they're not super strong rigid lumps of pure titanium. Also of course airliner wings are swept backwards not straight across at 90 degree angles to the plane, so whilst you can't really predict how or where the wings will end up you can be sure that as soon as the most forward parts of the wing get hit at speed by a concrete structure they'll be anywhere but sticking directly outwards slicing into the building like you idiotically expect.
Before you try the initial experiment and fly into a building to see if it leaves any debris outside can I suggest you drive really fast in a car as close to a brick wall as possible sticking your arm out the window simulating the planes wing and come back and tell us how you did with slicing the wall in half with your simulated wing as you presume should happen?
9/11 conspiracists are as thick as they come.
Obviously this story is an anti-American smear campaign.
There can and should be no question about the quality of the planes produced by a company where theft, sexual/racial harassment, violence and sleeping on the job are 'par for the course'.
After all, it will be certainly be cleared as safe by an agency of a government where theft, sexual/racial harassment, violence and sleeping on the job are par for the course.
"Up until the 1980's, F1 cars were made of aluminium and plenty of drivers crashed them, with fatal results. These days they're made from composites, plenty of drivers crash them and walk away afterwards."
This has more to do with FIA regs than the materials used. The primary reason for F1 teams using composite materials is performance, not safety, related. The same is true with Boeing.
The difference is that is is (relatively) straightforward to improve the safety of an F1 car carrying just the driver, particularly where all the teams are constrained by the same safety rules and the cars have a very limited lifespan (one season).
Providing an F1 style 'safety cell' for every passenger would more than halve the passenger capacity of the aircraft ( and hugely increase its cost, and that of flight tickets) and, obviously, would be of little benefit in an uncontrolled plunge from 30,000ft.
However F1 car do not fly at high altitudes, are not exposed to the same sort of radiation or a highly charged electrical environment of a cumulonimbus and are replaced a lot more frequently than an aircraft. When new, the aircraft may be OK. But what happens when it's getting a little bit aged, like after six months or so?
Quote:
"Yes...
By Ian
Posted Wednesday 19th September 2007 20:12 GMT
...because an ex-employee who was sacked is blatantly a trustworthy source of information.
Isn't it better to let the FAA decide it's safe to fly as it has seeing as they're an impartial third party that is responsible for dealing with air crashes and air safety than some grudge bearing ex-employee.
"
Yeah right, would that be the same people that told the UK it was safe to feed cows crunched bone and meat remains?
Because these caused quite a drama story you know...
Maybe Douglas was good, but McDonnell Douglas produced the notorious DC10 - a plane which had a fatal design flaw in its cargo door (which opened outwards). The door blew open in flight on at least two occasions in early service, on one occasion the plane was brought back safely, on the other, in 1974, over 300 people died near Paris. Then there was the bad design of the hydraulic lines in the tail which meant that all of them could be lost (as happened at Sioux City in 1989).
The DC10 was eventually almost fixed, but it didn't really ever compete against the 747/767/777.
The reason you don't find so many elderly Boeings is that they've been forced out of service by ever more stringent noise regulations at most Western airports - hence the 707 and 727 are pretty much extinct. Comparing Boeing airliners to the DC3 is pretty unfair - the DC3 was replaced as a front-line airliner in the middle of the 1950s and those that soldiered on work far less hard than modern airliners in much more benign circumstances. There are plenty of 40 year old Boeings still in everyday service.
..."for stating he wanted to hang the African-American executive 'on a meat hook' and that he 'wouldn't mind' seeing a noose around the executive's neck", the Seattle Times reports."
Never mind whether your plane is made out of plastic or coke cans, statements like this always get my ire. To me this looks like the race card being played to discredit him.
If it was said in a racist way lets see him formally accused of that, rather than suggesting it.
"I'm pretty sure you're screwed, whatever airliner you're in, if it crashes. As can be seen by this weeks earlier events, an aluminium jet shatters and burns at landing speed - I'd be surprised if a plastic plane would be any more dangerous."
Not quite screwed Nick,
If I remember correctly, there were a few survivors of the Thai plane crash a few days ago.
just probably screwed
I seem to remember the very advanced Focke-Wulf Ta 154 Moskito night fighter had loads of problems (i.e. in-flight fuselage break-ups...) because the glue they used to bond the wooden main spars wasn't as good as the one they used previously (Tego-Film ..I think..) 'coz The Bomber Command had wiped out the factory.
Wikipedia confirms what I remember from a WW II German warplane book I have at home...
Ah, it was wing failure, not the fuselage ... much better then.
I like how Boeing discredit him by suggesting he is racist.
"dismissed for threatening a supervisor, specifically for stating he wanted to hang the African-American executive 'on a meat hook'"
He was racist!! It was a poor "African-American" greedy exec with no regard for public safety...
Well I hope this doesn't delay the launch of what is an important aircraft, America, recognising the need for "tek-nol-o-gee" to save the planet..
Carbon-fiber reinforced plastic, aparantley. I would be more worried about fumes from jet-fuel and molten self-dimming windows (remember, the windows are really big, and theres lots of 'em)
I hear there are plans for a sound proofed crèche stuffed down the back somewhere, how cool is that? But just wait until one crashes and the tail hits first...
A new plane can only be A Good Thing (unless you're worried about your carbon footprint). There are some dodgy crates floating about out there already.
The DC-10's been covered. But I remember a horrifying hour spent aboard a Kampuchea Airlines flight from Bangkok to Phnom Penh. We rattled across the border in a Royal Air Cambodge hand-me-down L1011 TriStar. I was convinced every mile that passed took me closer to becoming an FAA statistic.
And there was Cubana's antique Antonov AN-24, which shot a ten-foot flame out of the starboard engine during take-off. No one else aboard seemed bothered, so I downed a few Cuba Libres and went to sleep. On landing, I did a passable impersonation of John Paul II.
This is almost case study, why planes are getting less safe:
"Or, more specifically, the bolts holding the engines on." - Yep, they did fail, on DC-9. And that was insident that ended Douglas Aviation.
But they failed because mechanic had not followed service manual while giving the engine once-over. And even then the plane would have been fine if pilot, for reason now know only by his ghost, hadn't switched the emergency autopilot off and kept switching it off as it tried to compensate the loss off power with flaps.
End result was huge fireball in evening news and even after FAA report revealed six months later, that it had been sloppy mechanic and pilot, who seemed to behave against his simulator-training that killed the plane, people still say: "It was the bolts", because that is what newspaper headlines were.
McDonnel bought Douglas soon after that and thus ended the last aircraft manufacturer that used safety as sellingpoint: Since then nobody has tested their airframes to 1,5 times the time and stress demanded by FAA. DC-10 was never built by Douglas standrads and it shows. After it failed, even the DC-brand was buried.
As for comparing the DC-3 being unfair, note that there was lot of competition to DC-3 during its prime. Where are they now? Same can be said about DC-4s, -5s, -6s and so on. Douglas aircrafts are always capable of keeping up and running about 20-30 years longer than competition's models.
Douglas tested its airframes to the limit of their endurance, while others tested them to limit set by FAA. They were most tested civil aircrafts ever built.
Good lord... someone comes out with what may or may not be valid concerns and he (and everyone reporting on it) are all of a sudden Anti-American? No Mr Brasche, they are not. I assume you are American to come out with such a blinkered view. Both the Dreamliner and the A380 over here are gorund breaking designs, and trust me, the 380 is getting a royal clobbering from the press. More so than your precious and possibly unsafe Dreamliner.
Why was it necessary for Boeing to play the race card, unless it was to try and smear this guy with the standard sheeple who are going to lap the term "african american" up? Sounds suspiciously like a coordinated attempt to destroy the guy's credibility, but why? Unless...
To have fuselage partially shatter on crash may make it easier for those who survived the initial impact to leave the plane before they are burned to cinders. That requires obviously that there is some load bearing structure that is not part of the composite fuselage, otherwise the issue of burning will not arise, rather that of cremation...
I am more worried about the general pressure put on the constructors to finish the plane within the declared deadline - it was from the beginning a most aggressive certification plan ever attempted for a totally new commercial airliner but now they have already slipped even from the original timetable.
When such pressure exists - people tend to cut corners wherever they can and that is the main problem.
" However, if you subject carbon fibre composite material to high energy impact while simultaneously burning it with a high temperature flame - typically 1000ºC (typical aircraft crash conditions) significant quantities of respirable fibres may be released."
I can't help but think if it is on fire and burning at 1000ºC you might have a bit more trouble than worrying about a sudden onset of Asthma from carbon fibre inhalation.
This story echoes developments in F1 when McLaren started to make the tubs (ie the bit the driver sits in) from carbon fibre reinforced resin composites back in 1981.
Relevance ....? Most of the developers came from an aerospace background, military aviation at the time spending much time and effort to make some individual components from lightweight carbon composites rather than traditional metal composites such as bonded aluminium honeycombs. The engineering principles and critical, high stress were extremely similar to the kind of thing they were working with in the aviation field.
The tubs were manufactured and shortly informal crash testing began at the hands of Andrea De Cesaris (he of 17 crashes in 16 races in a Ligier fame), with notable contributions from John Watson on occasion. Results revealed that the carbon was dramatically stronger than the previous gold standard folded and riveted aluminum sheet, or bonded aluminum honeycomb structures, and in a totally different league to the last of sheet ally skinned spaceframe (not a true monocoque) tubs then in use in F1. Both De Cesaris and Watson walked unaided from accidents that would have been gruesomely fatal in any other car at the time.
There were however problems. Crashes rarely resulted in a single impact, but had the car bouncing like a pinball from impact to impact just the same as always.... Except that the carbons resistance to each successive impact is massively compromised. Failure modes included delamination (hard to detect, a DAMS Lola driver, Erik Comas suffered a minor delamination on his 1989 F3000 car affecting performance in a way the team couldn't get to grips with. This went undetected for months, having an accident in such a compromised chassis may well have been very bad news), and occasional shattering (Watson close to losing legs at Monza in '82 when the front of his MP4 shattered after a big impact). Alex Zanardi did lose his after just such a failure resulting from an accident. Aluminium typically folds, carbon failures can be very much more spectacular. On the other hand you aren't going to be as strong or protective with an ally structure within the same weight constraints....
Even now it isn't unknown for spectacular failures to occur. I saw the entire front end fall off a two year old F2002 Ferrari at Laguna Seca in 2004. Difficulties specific to composites like this include none destructive testing, you can't use traditional techniques.
Wheldon may, just may have a point. On the other hand if Boeing can accurately gauge component life, none destructively test (current airliners are crack tested regularly), and get around the problem of structural strength being disproportionately degraded by repeated impacts. He does also have, by definition an agenda, but then so do Boeing.
This post has been deleted by its author
@ Ian
[quote]
Furthermore you expect there to be a nice little wing shaped gouge through the building leaving a cross shaped entry point? Anyone who's flown has seen how flexible aircraft wings are as they bend - they're not super strong rigid lumps of pure titanium.
[/quote]
True...
Shame about the TWO SIX TONNE engines bolted onto those foldable wings.
Do you reckon they used Gzip or Lha on those engines ?
"so whilst you can't really predict how or where the wings will end up you can be sure that as soon as the most forward parts of the wing get hit at speed by a concrete structure they'll be anywhere but sticking directly outwards slicing into the building like you idiotically expect."
Ok, i'm not a conspiracy nut but i do like some other view points on just what i've been feed by TV... some of it does raise some questsions...
Like how 2 6 tonne engines completely disappeared, and left no marks on the side of the Pentagon...
...have rear facing seats. I remember ages ago some research about how to make plane crashes more survivable. The conclusion was to have the seats facing backwards so that when you hit the deck you don't get cut in half by your seat belt and your brain stays attached to your spinal chord. I think it was about the time of the crash at east-midlands airport in the UK.
I'm not sure, but I think they did say that UK Airforce passenger planes have rear facing seats already because of this. Any Airforce people able to confirm this?
Plus, did you hear the report about the light aircraft crashing into a cemetery this morning? A police spokesman said they have recovered 150 bodies, but fear that there may be many more...
Always makes me laugh that one :o)
[quote]Maybe Douglas was good, but McDonnell Douglas produced the notorious DC10 - a plane which had a fatal design flaw in its cargo door (which opened outwards). The door blew open in flight on at least two occasions in early service, on one[/quote]
To be fair the Boeing 747 also shares this flaw, and also had a door blow out mid flight, resulting in several (9 iirc) deaths when the first 6 rows of seat blew out of the aircraft. It was also found that faulty wiring on the door mechanism meant it could easily open of its own accord and it was little wonder more 747's hadn't suffered catastrophic failures mid-flight.
The DC10 design was unfortunate in that you don't expect the entire fan blade assembly to shatter, the resulting explosion of fan blades severing all your hydraulic lines including backup lines.
@ Malcolm Weir
The A380 uses pure composites for the tail and a few flaps. The fuselage is glassfibre-reinforced aluminium. Sorry for the facts being so appallingly anti-american, or whatever, but you are uninformed, and Boeing seems to be wanting to cut nasty corners and hide behind the usual "blame the messenger "tactics (anyone surprised raise their hand). Glassfibre does not shatter or burn anything like carbon fibre does, and the metal sheeting takes much better care of lightning strikes.
We all know this message if purely driven by my jealousy of not having a US passport (hidden behind a canadian passport-like cover), so fell free to disregard it.
I want a crash emergency ejector seat, one that the bored passenger cant set off, one that i cant set off (cos i probably would) and one that some mobile or other doo da cant set off. Failing that i want a parachute and the option to jump if things look crap although the ejector seat with built in inflatable dingy, radio locator beacon and mini bar would be my preference.
I am amazed that private jets don't have them yet also btw!
Obviously they would all have to fire together or we may have a few less survivors than possible.
I doubt it would work but its gota be worth some darpa style pork research funding.
"I think they did say that UK Airforce passenger planes have rear facing seats already because of this. Any Airforce people able to confirm this?"
I'm not an airforce person, but yes, they certainly used to. As a small Mr Larrington I flew back(wards) from Hong Kong to Brize Norton in an RAF VC10. Whether they still do, I know not.
When the De Haviland comet (the worlds first jetliner and British as well!) started to break up in flight it took YEARS to work out that metal fatigue was the problem! Boeing are useing composites in a very different way,but think that a few MONTHS testing will do the trick.Not with me on board it won't! (I'm probably on the shit lists in the USA now, cos I'm obviously anti american)
Whether it is a pressuris(z)ed Alumin(i)um tube or one made out of composite materials makes absolutely no difference to me, i will not be in it.
At least not until there is a failsafe process, in case of catastrophic failure, for the passengers(by which, i mean me) either escape pod, parachute, ejector seat, site to site transporter or some other mechanism.
Until then, i shall be remaining on terra firma.
9/11 conspiracy theorists need to develop some brains - or at least learn to apply Occam's Razor (the simplest and well-attested explanation is normally the correct one).
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html?page=6
Top pic shows the impact in the Pentagon. The plane was pretty well obliterated, and debris was scattered internally and externally, most of it in tiny pieces. The fuselage broke apart, the wings broke apart, the engines broke apart. The only thing that stayed reasonably intact was the landing gear (impact hole shown in the second pic).
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