Report
Kate Rice’s article is a quick mention of the very recent grounding of Boeing 787 Dreamliners in the United States as a result of safety fears. She mentions the emergency landing that an All Nippon Airways Boeing 787 plane had to make in Takamatsu Airport, Japan as a result of a battery fault. Like the 17 All Nippon Airways 787s and the 11 Japan Airways 787s that were grounded in Japan, United Airlines was ordered by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to temporarily stop using any of its 6 Boeing 787s. Later on Wednesday, the FAA announced that the 6 Boeing 787s of the United Airlines would be permitted to resume operations after the FAA, along with the airlines and the manufacturer of the Boeing 787s, worked on an action plan. Rice concludes her article by highlighting the cause of the battery of the 787 aircraft that had to have an emergency landing in Japan, and the fact that the assembly, design and manufacture are under review (Rice).
An average total of 615,911,539 passengers in the United States travelled in domestic and international flights ("transtats.bts.gov"). Thus, the safety of US passengers who travel by airplanes every year is a critical issue. The consequences of failure of an aircraft component, as happened with the Boeing 787 in Japan, can be catastrophic (Findlay, and Harrison), and such a failure could have occurred in any of the six 787s of the United Airlines and could have resulted in the loss of life, had they not been grounded. Thus, Rice’s article, like countless other articles that have recently been circulating throughout the internet, is sort of a nod to the FAA’s quick decision to ground the 6 Boeing 787 Dreamliners that are being operated by a single US carrier. I feel her article is quite up to date and she succeeds in proving all the critical details related to the incident in such a brief article. Moreover, I feel that it was a very wise decision by the FAA to ground the 787 aircrafts.
References
"Data Elements - Transtats." transtats.bts.gov. RITA, n.d. Web. 17 Jan 2013. <http://www.transtats.bts.gov/Data_Elements.aspx?Data=1>.
Findlay, S. J., and N. D. Harrison. "Why aircraft fail."southampton.ac.uk. The University of Southampton, n.d. Web. 17 Jan 2013. <http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~jps7/Aircraft Design Resources/Structures/whyaircraftfail.pdf>.
Rice, Kate. "FAA grounds 787 Dreamliners."travelweekly.com. Travel Weekly, 16 Jan 2013. Web. 17 Jan 2013. <http://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-News/Airline-News/FAA-grounds-787-Dreamliners/>.
