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U.S. to review Boeing 787, but calls plane safe

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By JOAN LOWY and JOSHUA FREED

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So these are glitches, not gremlins, and the message is not to pour water on them?

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So the planes are deemed safe but doesn't have it's final approval for flight past 5.5hrs because of a rule change ?? I hope they don't get approval until the track record of safe time flying without instances of dire issues is broken .

I hope the review prolongs the duration of not being able to fly long distances and forces a more stringent policy on quality control

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@crazed

So the planes are deemed safe but doesn't have it's final approval for flight past 5.5hrs because of a rule change ?? I hope they don't get approval until the track record of safe time flying without instances of dire issues is broken . I hope the review prolongs the duration of not being able to fly long distances and forces a more stringent policy on quality control

That's not what the article means, although not very clear as it is written.

ETOPS (Extended Twin OPerationS) is a certification given to aircraft that allows them to fly within a certain range of an airport. Currently the 787 is certified to 180minutes (3 hours) which means tht during its flight (which can be any duration whatsoever as long as it has fuel) it must be within 3 hours range of an airport capable of handling it at anyone time. Boeing want to extend this to 5.5 hours but the FAA rule change (and I don't know what that change is) prevents them from certifying right now. It all dates back to when long range aircraft had four engines and jet technology was still relatively young (i.e. no-one trusted that an aircraft could safely be flown long distances without losing power to one or more engines). Right now the assumption is that if one engine goes, the other engine won't die within 180 minutes.

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There is no obvious trend or similarity to the problems, which suggests they are more likely the result of quality control than a design flaw, aviation safety experts said.

This scares me more than a design flaw. With a design flaw at least they know what to look out for, and once it's diagnosed it can be fixed. With poor quality control, any part can fail at any time...

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wonder is theyll get NASA to check the accelerator/thrust levers in the cockpit are working properly!?

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