Model Airplanes

Hong Kong’s aviation authority has demanded explanations from a local airline company as to why its commercial jets had seen some of their components breaking off multiple times over the past few days.

The Civil Aviation Department (CAD) on Wednesday said it has asked Hong Kong Airlines, a member of China’s HNA Group, to submit as soon as possible a detailed report on the incidents, which its spokesperson had claimed had no impact on the safety of the planes in question, the Hong Kong Economic Journal reports.

According to Japanese media reports, a total of eight planes operated by the company were found to have suffered from falling parts since May 26, involving a total of 19 pieces. All of them were flights between Hong Kong and Tokyo’s Narita International Airport.

One of the reports said Narita’s airport authorities had to close a runway and ensure the parts had not fallen there, delaying other flights, and that authorities later determined that the missing parts may have fallen off during the flight.

Local media cited Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism as saying that it is “unusual that components from several airplanes of the same airline fell off successively in such a short period of time”, The Standard reported.

Responding to media inquiries, Hong Kong Airlines said all of its flights have to undergo careful inspection before taking off, adding that the missing items are usually only small screws that did not pose any safety risk.

It also said it had taken the initiative to report the

Article source: http://www.ejinsight.com/20190531-hk-airlines-asked-to-address-concerns-over-falling-plane-parts/

The guiding principle of this reporting will be the one we developed—city by city, story by story, question by question, surprise by surprise—through our preceding years of travel. The central premise is that the most positive and practical developments in this stage of American life are happening at the local and regional level—but that most Americans have barely heard of those developments except in the communities where they themselves live.

This past February, an extensive nationwide survey from the American Enterprise Institute provided data that matched what we’d heard in interviews. By nearly a 2-to-1 ratio, the survey’s directors (Sam Abrams, Karlyn Bowman, and Ryan Streeter) found, Americans were very pessimistic when asked about the prospects for the country as a whole. But by nearly a 3-to-1 ratio, people in different parts of the country, and of different races and economic groups, said they felt that their own communities were moving in the right direction. It was like the radio host Garrison Keillor’s ancient joke about Lake Wobegon, where “the children were all above average,” but with a real-world edge. People recognized the possibility of progress, despite obstacles and injustices, in their own part of America, but assumed the rest of the country must be doing much worse.

Of course the paralysis

Article source: https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2019/05/what-does-all-local-action-add/590572/

EVERETT — The Boeing Co. will decide by the end of the year whether to offer an all-new airplane, the aerospace giant told The Daily Herald.

It was the first definitive statement on the timing of a decision since the 737 Max crisis began in March.

Even aerospace analysts were uncertain how Boeing would proceed with a decision on the new “middle-market” airplane, informally dubbed the 797.

Since a second 737 Max crash March 10 led to the model’s grounding, there has been speculation that Boeing might defer a decision on a new passenger jet until next year or even later.

However, Boeing said Friday it would stick to the time frame promised Jan. 30 by CEO Dennis Muilenberg, before the Max grounding — that a board of directors decision on the new airplane, sometimes called the NMA, would be made in 2019.

Boeing spokesman Paul Bergman said in an email: “Our focus is on returning the 737 Max to service, however, we are still working through the NMA business case and once we complete that work, we will make a decision this year on whether to offer the airplane. If we decide to offer the airplane and the market responds positively, we will proceed with a launch decision sometime in 2020.”

Before the 737 Max grounding, many assumed the new 797 would be announced at the Paris Air Show the week of June 17-23. A coalition of elected officials, businesses and unions created by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee was anticipating a

Article source: https://www.bellevuereporter.com/news/boeing-says-decision-on-new-airplane-will-come-this-year/