Latest news with #Boeings
The Print
8 hours ago
- Politics
- The Print
22 July, 2025: Congress claims ‘deeper reasons' for Dhankhar resignation & other news of the day
The Maharashtra government has approached the Supreme Court to challenge the Bombay High Court's recent verdict acquitting all 12 men convicted in 2006 Mumbai train blasts, which claimed over 180 lives. This follows a High Court judgment delivered 21 July, which overturned the convictions handed down by a special court in 2015, where five men were sentenced to death and seven to life imprisonment. Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday expressed strong reservations against the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls being undertaken by the Election Commission (EC) in Bihar ahead of the upcoming assembly elections, accusing the government of 'murdering democracy'. This comes amid protests by the INDIA bloc and its leaders in Parliament's premises against the electoral rolls revision exercise being carried out by the EC. The opposition leaders have alleged that voting rights of people are being taken away. In a letter to President Droupadi Murmu, 74-year-old Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar said his resignation will be effective immediately. 'To prioritise healthcare and abide by medical advice, I hereby resign as the Vice President of India, effective immediately,' his letter read. The Congress claimed there is more than meets the eye and 'far deeper reasons' for Jagdeep Dhankhar's resignation than the health issues he has cited, and said his resignation speaks highly of him but poorly of those who got him elected to the post. 'No issues': AI on fuel control switch on Boeings In a statement Tuesday, Air India informed that it has concluded inspections on the locking mechanism of the Fuel Control Switch (FCS) on all Boeing 787 and 737 aircraft in its fleet and stated that no issues were found. The inspections were conducted on the directions of the DGCA after the AI-171 crash. On 21 July, MoS Civil Aviation Murlidhar Mohol informed Parliament that no adverse trend was flagged/reported in reliability reports of Air India during the last six months in respect of AI171 that crashed in Ahmedabad last month. Appointment of 3 more judges to Delhi HC approved The Centre, through the Ministry of Law and Justice, on Tuesday notified the appointment of three judges to the Delhi High Court. Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal announced the appointments via his official account on X. Acting upon the recommendations, the President approved the appointments of Ms. Shail Jain, Ms. Madhu Jain, and Mr. Vinod Kumar as judges of the Delhi High Court. Following these appointments, the working strength of judges at the Delhi High Court rises to 43, while the sanctioned strength stands at 60. Preparation for Census 2027 starts: MHA in Lok Sabha Preparation for Census 2027 has started, and a two-day conference of Directors of Census Operations was held at the beginning of this month, Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) told the Lok Sabha Tuesday. The two-day conference was held on July 3-4 in New Delhi. The conference featured discussion on the roadmap for the Census and related activities such as finalisation of frame of administrative units, collection of data through mobile apps, management and monitoring of census activities through Census Management and Monitoring System (CMMS) portal, self-enumeration, training of census functionaries, etc. Bihar hospital murder: Two suspects shot in encounter, 7 held Two murder suspects in the killing of gangster Chandan Mishra in a Patna hospital were injured in a police encounter. The incident took place during a joint operation by the Bihar special task force and Bhojpur police. The suspects have been identified as Balwant Kumar Singh and Ravi Ranjan Kumar Singh, and both are currently in hospital for treatment. 7 militants arrested in Manipur Seven militants were arrested from different parts of Manipur, the police said on Tuesday. Three of them, identified as Khumanthem Umakanta Singh (36), Pukhrambam Naoton Singh (22) and Soibam Bargil Meitei (23), are members of the Kangleipak communist party, and were arrested on Sunday from Tengnoupal district. The other four are cadres of the UPPK and arrested on Monday from the East Imphal district. 18-year-old kidnapped and raped in Odisha An 18 year old woman in Odisha was allegedly kidnapped by two men while returning home with a friend, taken to a farmland in Jagatsinghpur district and raped, police said on Tuesday. Amrendra Das, BJP MLA of Jagatsinghpur, said that the police have launched a search operation for the culprits. British Navy's F-35B jet takes off from Kerala airport British Royal Navy's F-35B jet took off from the international airport in Kerala Tuesday, a month after making an emergency landing. Officials said that the jet, which took off at 10:50 am flew to Darwin in Australia. The F-35B landed in Thiruvananthapuram when it was undertaking a routine flight outside the Indian air defence identification zone, which is a designated area of airspace extending beyond a country's sovereign territory. Saksham Thakur is an alumna of ThePrint School of Journalism, currently interning with ThePrint. (Edited by Viny Mishra) Also read: After The Resistance Front's terror designation, Lashkar is planning evil new war against India
The Age
13-06-2025
- Business
- The Age
Is the Air India crash one too many for Boeing's reputation?
Before the 787-8 Dreamliner departing Ahmedabad, India, plunged to the ground after take-off on Thursday, Boeing was already tiptoeing away from a financial and reputational cliff. While the investigation is only beginning, the Air India Dreamliner crash will almost inevitably push people to ask if this is one air disaster too many for the century-old plane-maker Boeing. Crashes of Boeings have happened at an alarming cadence in recent years. An Indonesian Lion Air Boeing 737 Max crashed in 2018, followed by an Ethiopian Airlines of the same model in 2019. An issue was traced to a flawed flight control system. The incidents sparked a global grounding of the fleet. Then a door fell off an Alaska Airlines 737 in midair in 2024. By the next month, an outside panel of experts had concluded Boeing faced persistent shortcomings in its safety culture. Regulators moved in. The share price slid. Costs mounted. And a new CEO was found. 'If it's Boeing, I'm not going' became a catchphrase. So began the company's meticulous re-evaluation of its production process, which has slowed the assembly line down, even as demand for new planes has soared after the COVID-19 lockdowns. Only 1266 aircraft were delivered globally by Boeing and Airbus together in 2024, an 8.1 per cent drop from 2023, the International Air Transport Association reported. Building modern jetliners is no small feat. The cost of developing a blockbuster model is enormous, in part because a new model must be 20 per cent to 30 per cent more efficient than the planes they replace. (The Dreamliner's lighter structure cuts fuel use by up to 25 per cent.)
Sydney Morning Herald
13-06-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Is the Air India crash one too many for Boeing's reputation?
Before the 787-8 Dreamliner departing Ahmedabad, India, plunged to the ground after take-off on Thursday, Boeing was already tiptoeing away from a financial and reputational cliff. While the investigation is only beginning, the Air India Dreamliner crash will almost inevitably push people to ask if this is one air disaster too many for the century-old plane-maker Boeing. Crashes of Boeings have happened at an alarming cadence in recent years. An Indonesian Lion Air Boeing 737 Max crashed in 2018, followed by an Ethiopian Airlines of the same model in 2019. An issue was traced to a flawed flight control system. The incidents sparked a global grounding of the fleet. Then a door fell off an Alaska Airlines 737 in midair in 2024. By the next month, an outside panel of experts had concluded Boeing faced persistent shortcomings in its safety culture. Regulators moved in. The share price slid. Costs mounted. And a new CEO was found. 'If it's Boeing, I'm not going' became a catchphrase. So began the company's meticulous re-evaluation of its production process, which has slowed the assembly line down, even as demand for new planes has soared after the COVID-19 lockdowns. Only 1266 aircraft were delivered globally by Boeing and Airbus together in 2024, an 8.1 per cent drop from 2023, the International Air Transport Association reported. Building modern jetliners is no small feat. The cost of developing a blockbuster model is enormous, in part because a new model must be 20 per cent to 30 per cent more efficient than the planes they replace. (The Dreamliner's lighter structure cuts fuel use by up to 25 per cent.)
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Why Boeing Still Uses Yokes Instead Of Side Sticks
Yokes, at least for aircraft controls and not electric cars like Teslas, go all the way back to the early 1900s, before hydraulics were on planes. Since the pilot's input physically moved the necessary cables attached to the plane's moving parts, they'd really need to put their muscle into it. That meant having a big, sturdy thing they could grab with both hands and wrestle with. The yoke, also called a control column, was form meeting function. That function has changed a lot in the modern era, however. In a time when most planes are fly-by-wire (meaning the pilot's input goes to a computer, which then figures out which parts of the plane to move), the yoke may seem like a bit of a relic. Indeed, European aviation juggernaut Airbus ditched the control column in 1985 with the introduction of its A320. Opting instead for a side stick -- a much fancier version of a joystick control -- Airbus let its pilots make small, simple hand movements that the computer would translate to the rest of the aircraft. And yet, to this day, America's airliner powerhouse Boeing continues to put a yoke on every single one of its commercial planes. It's not that it missed the memo of what Airbus was up to, though. Boeing continues to believe that a yoke confirms the importance of the pilot over the computer, and it believes that very prominence distinguishes its planes from the competition. Read more: How Much Do Car Salespeople Make? The Pay Structure Explained Boeing has at least thought about switching to side sticks as far back as the development of the venerable 737 in the 1960s. Over the decades, however, it has stuck with the yoke. For one thing, that makes it easier for pilots of one Boeing plane to jump into the cockpit of another, since this pivotal system is essentially the same in all of them. That reduces retraining costs and preserves a pilot's comfort and familiarity. Using a yoke is also a much more actively involved experience than using a side stick. Even though most modern Boeings are fly-by-wire (though, notably, not the troubled 737 MAX), the company still requires the pilot to make a number of decisions about the flight that might otherwise be automated. The idea is to put the pilot in the center of the experience, rather than hope the computer is working correctly. In addition, the yokes of the pilot and co-pilot are designed to give direct tactile feedback to each other. This way, when one of them makes a move, the other can both see it (since the yokes are in front of them) and feel it. This keeps the pilot and co-pilot in better coordination and helps prevent them from accidentally fighting each other's controls -- coordination that could be vital in emergency situations. Yokes are, by their nature, big and bulky things right in front of the pilot. That also takes up a lot of visual space, making the cockpit cluttered. One of the reasons Airbus switched to sticks, which are small and to the pilot's side, was to free up room for more, and bigger, displays. The emphasis of the Airbus experience, therefore, is not so much on the flying as on the monitoring of critical data and information. The fly-by-wire computer can handle all the little details. Depending on the pilot, that might be viewed as a major convenience or a major loss of human value. But the Airbus design doesn't allow for direct feedback between the pilot's and co-pilot's sticks (even though this technology does exist). Since they can't even see each other's sticks (because they're off to the side), there's no real way for the pilot and co-pilot to know exactly what the other is doing at any given moment. This can be dangerous in an emergency. Indeed, the tragic crash of Air France flight 447 was attributed to this exact issue. Of course, one way Airbus might get around this is by ditching the co-pilot altogether. Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox... Read the original article on Jalopnik.
Global News
23-05-2025
- Global News
Canada hosts more old passenger jets than any other country. Here's why
Each morning, travellers and cargo take off from Montreal's Trudeau airport for a 1,600-kilometre flight to Puvirnituq in northern Quebec aboard a nearly 50-year-old Air Inuit plane. This seasoned Boeing 737 previously cruised the skies above Europe and Central Africa for now-defunct carriers in France, Gabon and the Congo. But now its trips are all-Canadian, shuttling people, food and building materials between the country's second-biggest city and a village of 2,100. The aging aircraft is no outlier in Canada, which plays host to more old jets deployed for passenger service than any other country. Their age can pose challenges for maintenance and fuel efficiency, while others question the safety of second-hand haulers, but operators say they are ideally suited for commercial flights to remote destinations. Thirteen of the 30 oldest jets in the world carrying travellers on scheduled or charter routes are operating in Canada, according to figures from ch-aviation, an industry data provider. All 13 are Boeing 737-200s between 42 and 52 years old. Story continues below advertisement Venezuela is the runner-up, with six jets in the top 30. The United States notches three. Counterintuitively, Canada's sprawling geography, harsh weather and rugged airstrips are the reason it relies more heavily on old planes than on newer, sleeker models. 'The reason why Air Inuit still flies the 200 series is not by choice but by obligation,' said CEO Christian Busch, whose 36-plane fleet includes four of the classic narrow-bodies. Three — all among the oldest 30 globally — house passengers in the back half and freight in the front. Much of the rationale boils down to unpaved airstrips. 1:28 Boeing workers to vote on new wage deal Air Inuit flies aircraft on gravel runways, and the 737-200 is among the few jets approved to land on such surfaces. Story continues below advertisement That's because the beefy Boeing, which entered into service in 1968 and ceased production 20 years later, was designed to be fitted with a gravel kit. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy That modification includes a deflector on the nose wheel that shields the underbelly from flying rock fragments. It also blows compressed air in front of each engine to prevent debris from entering the turbofans, which could be damaged and shut down. All but seven of Canada's 117 'remote northern airports' are unpaved, according to a 2017 auditor general's report on aviation infrastructure in the North. 'We have a 737-800 on the fleet. I would love to fly that aircraft up north, but where can I land it?' asked Marco Prud'Homme, president of charter airline Nolinor Aviation. 'I mean, it's all unpaved runways.' While some of its vintage Boeings fly to villages, about half of Nolinor's flights descend on a half-dozen remote mines, transporting workers, groceries and supplies via 737-200 to an open-pit project in Nunavut and other northern operations. Mining companies avoid paving runways in part because asphalt and concrete are harder to rehabilitate when the site closes. More importantly for northern areas, permafrost can melt in the summer, creating cracks or large ripples in the runway. 'If you pave the runway, after one year you will have to start again,' Prud'Homme said. Story continues below advertisement While many airlines deploy a mix of turboprop planes — which can land on gravel — and jets, the former are far slower and thus less appealing for passenger travel. 'If you have to use a turboprop aircraft to get there, it's going to take forever,' said Prud'Homme, whose 14-aircraft fleet includes nine 'well-loved' 737-200s — more than any other carrier, he claims. Eight are among the 50 oldest passenger jets in the world deployed for passenger service, according to ch-aviation. The two longest-serving veterans are 50 and 51 years old, making them third- and fourth-oldest globally, right behind a pair of U.S.-based charter jets, the oldest of which was built in 1971 — for the now-defunct Canadian Airlines. Geriatric planes are not without issues. They guzzle more fuel and cause greater maintenance headaches, said Air Inuit's Busch. 'It's not as easy as maintaining new or modern aircraft,' whose components may be more readily available, he noted. Seemingly basic items can pose big problems. Finding parts to swap out a broken washroom lock can be tougher than changing an engine starter, Busch said. 1:54 Can airlines, officials better forecast severe turbulence to help avoid it? But Prud'Homme says components come at a lower cost than parts for newer jets and can be sourced easily enough. Story continues below advertisement While flying on a creaky plane from the '70s might give some passengers the jitters, there is little evidence of safety issues. A 2014 study by the MIT International Center for Air Transportation found there is no link between aircraft age and fatal accident rates in North America and Europe. Proper maintenance is far more important than the manufacturing date, said Pierre Clément, director of aviation at Glencore Canada's Raglan Mine, which sits in Nunavik near the northernmost tip of Quebec. 'There's no concern as far as safety is concerned because the airplanes are maintained,' he said. Glencore, whose two 46-year-old 737-200s rank among the 15 oldest passenger planes worldwide, flies a mechanic on every trip along with numerous replacement parts, Clément said. To avoid unexpected repairs, the company takes precautionary steps such as changing the tires after fewer landings than most carriers would. 'We know that if an airplane breaks down at the mine, it will cost a lot of money to fix it there,' he said. Though still a linchpin of remote air travel, Canada's stable of senior 737-200s may shrink as new solutions emerge. Glencore is taking ground temperature tests year-round to see if decreasing permafrost would allow for an asphalt runway. An airstrip made of aluminum planks is another option, but pricier. Story continues below advertisement The Quebec government announced last year it would commit up to $50 million to treat the gravel runway in Puvirnituq with a product that will make the strip harder and less prone to kicking up debris, among other renovations. 'We're working with Transport Canada to be able to fly a modern jet on a new surface type,' said Busch. He hopes to get a greenlight for newer planes to take off there as early as next year.
