Further delays at Boeing
BOEING put a rain check on the first test flight of its troubled 787 Dreamliner for the fifth time yesterday, and blamed a structural problem for the latest blow to the company’s credibility.
The planemaker declined to give a new date for the flight, or to confirm when the first delivery – which will also be rescheduled – would be.
The revolutionary carbon-composite aircraft, already two years behind its original schedule, was due to fly in the second quarter of 2009.
“It’s important that it flies when it’s ready to fly and when we have high confidence in what we can accomplish with it in flight tests,” chief executive Scott Carson said.
Boeing said the fix – reinforcing an area within the side-of-body section of the aircraft – was inexpensive, and didn’t raise broader worries about the future of the much-blighted aircraft.