Boeing 787 Unsafe ???

Gee a disgruntled employee dogging the people who fired him. Never see that happen. :rolleyes:

European planemaker Airbus came to the defense of its rival, Boeing, against accusations made regarding the safety of the American manufacturer’s upcoming 787 Dreamliner.
The Leeham Company reports Clay McConnell, VP for corporate communications at Airbus North America, said this week Boeing is correct in saying a composite-bodied airliner is just as safe as an aluminum-bodied one, when it comes to absorbing crash forces.
As ANN reported, former Boeing engineer Vincent Weldon — who was fired from the planemaker last year — asserted this week composite materials aren’t as resilient as aluminum in a crash scenario, and Boeing knows it. The composites engineer says the material can splinter into shards small enough for escaping passengers to breath in… and, that composite materials emit toxic smoke when burned.

Weldon made his case to the FAA in an 11-page letter. The engineer also appeared on Dan Rather’s HDNet news stream this week, an interview picked up by a multitude of news outlets.

Boeing vehemently denied the accusations. McConnell also told Leeham those charges, essentially, are false… and Boeing has likely taken the appropriate measures to ensure safety. “Nobody has more experience working with composites than Airbus,” McConnell said. “We know this stuff well.
“The properties of composite structures vary greatly according to their design purpose,” he continued. “Any suggestion that ‘composites behave in a certain way’ doesn’t give the whole story. The orientation of the carbon fibers in the various layers in a composite structure is design-engineered to give the desired strength across various axes. The carbon fiber structure is going to vary according to the unique purpose for that structure and the certification requirement in each area of the airplane.”

Airbus has a vested interest in the dispute. As McConnell said, Airbus has worked with composites for years… starting with the vertical stabilizer assemblies on its inaugural A300 and later A310 widebody airliners. Airbus also announced this week it plans to follow Boeing’s lead into utilizing the new technology, and will assemble its upcoming A350 XWB using composite panels and framing.

The planemaker has learned some harsh lessons with the new technology — including delamination issues, caused by moisture working its way into the composite sandwich structure — but Airbus, like Boeing, says there are ways to prevent such problems.

McConnell also said if there are problems with the 787 — or, for that matter, the A350 XWB — the FAA and EASA will not certify the plane.

http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentBlockID=e1918505-bc2d-4b15-a6db-9cc0765da397

Fired engineer calls 787’s plastic fuselage unsafe

A former senior aerospace engineer at Boeing’s Phantom Works research unit, fired last year under disputed circumstances, is going public with concerns that the new 787 Dreamliner is unsafe.

Forty-six-year veteran Vince Weldon contends that in a crash landing that would be survivable in a metal airplane, the new jet’s innovative composite plastic materials will shatter too easily and burn with toxic fumes. He backs up his views with e-mails from engineering colleagues at Boeing and claims the company isn’t doing enough to test the plane’s crashworthiness.

Boeing vigorously denies Weldon’s assertions, saying the questions he raised internally were addressed to the satisfaction of its technical experts.

Weldon’s allegations will be aired tonight by Dan Rather, the former CBS News anchor, on his weekly investigative show on cable channel HDNet.

Weldon thinks that without years of further research, Boeing shouldn’t build the Dreamliner and that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) shouldn’t certify the jet to fly.

Boeing’s current compressed schedule calls for a six-month flight-test program and federal certification in time for delivery in May.

Rather’s show presents a letter Weldon wrote to the FAA in July detailing his view, as well as two e-mails to Weldon dated August 2005 and February 2006, expressing similar safety concerns, from unidentified senior Boeing engineers who are still at the company.

Weldon worked at a Boeing facility in Kent. Within Boeing, he led structural design of a complex piece of the space shuttle and supervised several advance design groups. He has worked with composites since 1973.

Weldon recently declined through an intermediary to speak with The Seattle Times.

Boeing confirms he was a senior engineer, but spokeswoman Lori Gunter said he is not specifically a materials expert.

He complains in his July 24 letter to the FAA that when he expressed his criticisms internally they were ignored and “well-covered up.”

Weldon was fired in July 2006. He alleged in a whistle-blower complaint with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) that the firing was “retaliation for raising concerns throughout the last two years of his employment about the crashworthiness of the 787.”

But according to a summary of OSHA’s findings, Boeing told investigators Weldon was fired for threatening a supervisor, specifically 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.

Weldon denied to OSHA investigators that he had referred to a noose and said the “meat hook” reference had not been a threat.

OSHA dismissed Weldon’s claim, denying him whistle-blower status largely on the grounds that Boeing’s 787 design does not violate any FAA regulations or standards.

FAA spokesman Mike Fergus said Monday the 787 will not be certified unless it meets all the FAA’s criteria, including a specific requirement that Boeing prove passengers will have at least as good a chance of surviving a crash landing as they would in current metal airliners.
Rather said Weldon had spoken out publicly only with great reluctance.

“We approached Weldon. In the beginning, it was not at all certain he would cooperate,” Rather said in an interview.

Rather said his show doesn’t determine whether Boeing or Weldon is right. But referring to the e-mails from Weldon’s peers, he said, “There are others who are still within the company who are concerned … that Boeing could be destroyed by taking the 787 to market too soon and brushing aside these safety concerns too cavalierly.”

The Seattle Times reviewed the program transcript and also the letter to the FAA. In the letter, Weldon alleges:

• The brittleness of the plastic material from which the 787 fuselage is built would create a more severe impact shock to passengers than an aluminum plane, which absorbs impact in a crash by crumpling. A crash also could shatter the plastic fuselage, creating a hole that would allow smoke and toxic fumes to fill the passenger cabin.

• After such a crash landing, the composite plastic material burning in a jet-fuel fire would create “highly toxic smoke and tiny inhalable carbon slivers” that “would likely seriously incapacitate or kill passengers.”

Weldon also told the FAA this could also pose a major environmental hazard in the area around the crash site.

• The recently conducted crashworthiness tests — in which Boeing dropped partial fuselage sections from a height of about 15 feet at a test site in Mesa, Ariz. — are inadequate and do not match the stringency of comparable tests done on a 737 fuselage section in 2000.

• The conductive metal mesh embedded in the 787’s fuselage surface to conduct away lightning is too light and vulnerable to hail damage, and is little better than a “Band-Aid.”

Though aluminum airplanes are safe to fly through lightning storms, Weldon wrote, “I do not have even close to the same level of confidence” for the 787.

Boeing’s Gunter denied the specifics in Weldon’s Dreamliner critique.

“We have to demonstrate [to the FAA] comparable crashworthiness to today’s airplanes,” she said. “We are doing that.”

The recently completed crash tests were successful but are only the beginning of a process that relies on computer modeling to cover every possible crash scenario, she said.

Tests so far have shown that shards of composite material released in a crash are not a shape that is easily inhaled, Gunter said, and the smoke produced by composites in a jet-fuel fire is no more toxic than the smoke from the crash of an aluminum plane.

The 787’s lightning protection will meet FAA requirements, she said.

Gunter expressed frustration at Weldon’s portrayal of the plane maker as taking shortcuts for profit.

“We wouldn’t create a product that isn’t safe for the flying public,” Gunter said. “We fly on those airplanes. Our children fly on those airplanes.”

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/boeingaerospace/2003889663_boeing180.html

With the F1 monocoqhttp://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=1…
Key Publishing Ltd Aviation Forums – Reply to Topicue drivers survive the equivalent of jumping from 200 meter (w/o parachute). The difference of F1 and the B787 is, that the F1 monocoques have a nose crash structure designed for defined deceleration behaviour, and that is the part with the dust, spall and splinters.

Modern CFRP does not burn easily, though it’s not the best composite in that respect. But since its flammability depends very much on the structure (internal, as well as the local shape), environment and location within the airframe that’s a very complex issue. It’s toxic and a little corrosive when it burns. Somewhere on the FAA website there is a pdf about that.

I think if the temperatures are so high that you have to worry about the inflammation of the CFRP, you should better be this guy:

Yes F1 cars do survive crashes and all new cars have to go through rigorous crash testing befor being approved by the FIA.

As a foot note.

The highest G-Force ever survived in a F1 car is an estimated 178G after the car came to a complete stop from 176Kph in a distance of 66Cm. The driver sustained multiple fractures to his legs,ribs and pelvis, but survived and continues to race today in lower class competition

I’m involved in auto racing as a marshal or as called here in NA, a corner worker. I attended this years Canadian Grand Prix and was blue flagging at station 9B when we had a massive accident involving the driver Robert Kubica in the BMW powered Sauber F1 car.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MePg0h8hE3w

No one that was here on this day and who witnessed the crash believes that this driver would be alive after such a massive impact, let alone walking around that night or returning to driving after a one race rest – had he been driving an early 80’s aluminum based car.

The reason that people are surviving these massive crashes is because the carbon *does* break apart to absorb the G forces that would normally be transferred to your body in a “quick burst” instead of a controlled rate of transfer. It’s no good worrying about carbon burning when an aluminum aircraft traps you inside a folded up barrel like a peanut in a squashed beer can.

The ability to layer the weave and modify thickness allows the designers to protect the basic tube where the passengers are – also allows areas free of passengers such as the wings, engines etc to break away. It is this break up of the aircraft at a ‘controlled’ rate that is dissipating the G level and saving your life – not the darn thing staying in one piece! In all of the crashes I have attended in the last few years, the drivers tub has stayed in one major piece while the rest of the car breaks apart. The same idea will be applied to aircraft – tear up the aircraft in as controlled way as possible, but leave the fuselage the last major part to break apart.

As far as the aircraft made out of carbon fibre breaking into small pieces??? This must be someone’s idea of a joke? Modern carbon groups of the last five years are so advanced from what we knew in the early days that there simply is no comparison with the products used earlier. They won’t explode into some cloud of powder or shatter like a piece of glass unless the designer wanted then to do so and it certainly wouldn’t be the section under your butt.

Most carbon today has been designed for various uses and its make up can be as flexible as needed without breaking or as rigid as needed.

As far as the issue of some sort of poison smoke when carbon burns: Well I’m still here and kicking and I’ve put out quite a few race car fires where the body (carbon) was burning. Does it smell nice? Heck no. Would the smoke kill you if you breathe too much of it or ran out of O2? Umm, yeah. Same as any other smoke. Rule one – don’t breathe smoke if you can help it.

It takes a lot of heat to catch carbon on fire – heat that may have already led to your downfall before the smoke issue. I dare say that the heat transfer issue with aluminum is way worse then carbon. Has anyone such as this former Boeing person figured out that a wing burning beside an aluminum structure would transfer heart into the passenger area before the carbon material of the 787 would allow it? Perhaps we should worry about interiors and carry on bags giving off toxic smoke before anything else. How many people have been decapitated by the aluminum structure breaking up? Why don’t we harp on that issue? Why? Because there is not much we can do about something’s in life and the effects of Murphy’s Law. Sometimes you just have to TRUST people who make it their life’s work to design these things that they and their families will fly on, sitting beside you and I.

I always get a laugh out of the fire alarm pulling style of people who run around waving their arms about dangers they have fixated on yet don’t think twice about jay walking or driving their car fast. You want ultimate safety – design your own fireproof Styrofoam aircraft! Wait – doesn’t Styrofoam harm the Ozone layer too? 🙂

A bit of background….
When I was a journalist in Texas I had a front row seat to the “scandal”. Rather let his enthusiasm for getting a story stand in the way of solid reporting and fact checking. He reported that (later proven to be fasified) ANG records were fact. They were given to him by a former NG administrative officer (not in Bush’s chain of command or unit) who had a long time hatred of Bush. (My station had video from long before this story broke where the guys eyes were popping of of his sockets when talking about Bush…he was not a fan. Six months later, these “records” appear. It’s basic journalism that you don’t accept politically damning documents from an opponent/critic without making 100% sure they’re authentic.)

Just yesterday Rather filed a $70 million lawsuit with CBS saying he was made a scapegoat after their internal report said he errored and was forced to step down as head newsreader.
He later retired.
CBS admitted to sloppy reporting but it’s internal investigation found no proof that it was politically motivated (it just happened to be a month before an election :rolleyes: ).

Looks like Dan imay be up to his old tricks…taking a fired employee and holding him up as the only one in the company (or the FAA…or the international aerospace community) that knows anything or has a conscience.

I’m no expert, but don’t carbon fibre F1 cars do okay in crashes?

Yes F1 cars do survive crashes and all new cars have to go through rigorous crash testing befor being approved by the FIA.

As a foot note.

The highest G-Force ever survived in a F1 car is an estimated 178G after the car came to a complete stop from 176Kph in a distance of 66Cm. The driver sustained multiple fractures to his legs,ribs and pelvis, but survived and continues to race today in lower class competition

Last year Rather left CBS (CBSa.N: Quote, Profile, Research) after a scandal over his reporting on President George W. Bush’s military record.

(Reporting by Bill Rigby)

A bit of background….
When I was a journalist in Texas I had a front row seat to the “scandal”. Rather let his enthusiasm for getting a story stand in the way of solid reporting and fact checking. He reported that (later proven to be fasified) ANG records were fact. They were given to him by a former NG administrative officer (not in Bush’s chain of command or unit) who had a long time hatred of Bush. (My station had video from long before this story broke where the guys eyes were popping of of his sockets when talking about Bush…he was not a fan. Six months later, these “records” appear. It’s basic journalism that you don’t accept politically damning documents from an opponent/critic without making 100% sure they’re authentic.)

Just yesterday Rather filed a $70 million lawsuit with CBS saying he was made a scapegoat after their internal report said he errored and was forced to step down as head newsreader.
He later retired.
CBS admitted to sloppy reporting but it’s internal investigation found no proof that it was politically motivated (it just happened to be a month before an election :rolleyes: ).

Looks like Dan imay be up to his old tricks…taking a fired employee and holding him up as the only one in the company (or the FAA…or the international aerospace community) that knows anything or has a conscience.

I’m no expert, but don’t carbon fibre F1 cars do okay in crashes?

The 787 HAS TO GO THROUGH THE SAME RIGEROUS STRUCTURAL , CRASH testing + MORE TESTING BECAUSE OF CFRP then any airliner seeking FAA,EASA cetification . I dont see why this nonsence is around really . SO FAR boeing has done 3 tests , these tests were FAA mandatory to verify the COMPUTER MODEL that boeing had which predicts how the CFRP 787 will respond to a CRASH given different scenarios . All the 3 TESTS HAVE BEEN SUCCESFULL and the MODEL SOFTWARE is validated . IT WILL BE USED to predict further scenarios prior to Certification .

Testing, testing

The 787 Dreamliner program has completed the third of three large-scale structural tests – to determine whether the actual airframe performs in a simulated “crash landing” condition the same way as software modeling predicts.

Much of the results are in and we’ve concluded that the testing was a success.

The testing basically validated the analytical tool we’ll use to demonstrate compliance with the FAA’s “special condition” covering the crashworthiness of our composite structure.

We’ll continue to model a variety of crash scenarios to comply with the FAA’s condition – which requires us to show that the 787’s fuselage is as crashworthy as today’s aluminum airframes.

The testing of the Dreamliner’s composite fuselage took place in late August at a Boeing facility in Arizona. The idea was to simulate specific impact conditions that had already been modeled on the computer, and then determine the accuracy by comparing the results of the physical test to the computer model.

In the first test we crushed a composite fuselage section slowly between steel plates. In the second test, a suspended steel plate was rammed into a fuselage section.

And in the last of the three tests, engineers dropped a 10,000-pound, 20-foot wide, half-barrel fuselage from a drop tower onto a steel-plated platform. The fuselage section included 18 seats and two loaded cargo containers. We also added extra weight to account for passengers and the top upper skin and overhead luggage bins that were removed from the test fuselage.

The results from all three of the tests matched the computational analysis.

So what’s the significance? The testing and analysis show the accuracy of our computational tools. These tools will be used to demonstrate that the 787 has comparable characteristics to today’s similarly-sized airplanes made out of aluminum. The results will be used as part of the overall certification process for the 787 for entry into service next year.

http://boeingblogs.com/randy/archives/2007/09/testing_testing.html