Glitch grounds high-profile Boeing 787 flight to Tokyo
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SEATAC, Wash. -- A day that was supposed to be a celebration for Boeing's latest jet ended up leaving one of its major customers very unhappy.
The inaugural All Nippon Airways 787 flight from Sea-Tac Airport to Tokyo was delayed due to a mechanical glitch.
The flight was supposed to depart Monday, but a faulty part in the airplane's cooling system kept the aircraft on the ground at Sea-Tac.
ANA, which had several corporate officials on hand for the first flight, said the company was greatly disappointed with Boeing.
The airline was the launch customer for Boeing's 787 and has placed orders for many of the new jets. A spokesperson said the company was working with Boeing to address the latest mechanical problem.
The plane had landed Monday morning and fire trucks sprayed rainbows of water to greet the first ANA 787 to land in commercial service at Sea-Tac. The jet took its passengers to a terminal gate and prepared for its afternoon departure back to Tokyo before the delay was announced in the late afternoon.
The airline put the passengers up in a hotel overnight and hopes to have them back on the way to Tokyo at about 1:15 p.m. Tuesday on a second 787 that was flown to Sea-Tac overnight.
Passengers departing on the flight originally scheduled for Tuesday will fly to Tokyo on the repaired 787 aircraft that arrived yesterday.
This is a brand new plane, a lot of the technology is new. When you get on the "bleeding edge" of technology, things happen...The delivery of the plane was delayed several times (compare the space shuttle) as the 'bugs' were worked out.  When you get a million+ parts, something can fairly easily go wrong. And as al_02 said...this is exactly what safety systems are designed to do. Think of what might have happened if the safety systems hadn't worked and the plane crashed......And of course, no one has ever had any other flights delayed because of mechanical problems, have they?
Not sure what happened, but a plane that reports a fault in a critical system before the plane leaves the runway is not exactly a failure. That is exactly what the safety systems are designed to do.
Haste makes waste, I guess! Check it out first, to assure it really will fly!
This plane is becoming a bad joke.
And this bad joke is what we will all soon have to depend on! Whoopee!
 @NGerblansky Ya but do you remember the celabratory air bus flight that ended in a crashed plane? Much better to be grounded in a hotel then the local wooded area....
@FreedomRocks
It really shows how well the internet spreads misinformation that that crash keeps getting held up as an example of how unsafe Airbus planes are.
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The pilot of that aircraft went to jail for manslaughter. He purposely flew the aircraft with the engines in âflight idleâ in order to fly by as slow and at as high an angle of attack as possible. He then applied engine power too late (it takes about 8 seconds for the engines to spool up) to climb above the trees.
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You should read up on what actually happened, it was Air France Flight 296
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 @Vince009 Since you seem to be keen on not spreading mis-information I would love to see which words it was that implied or stated the airbus was unsafe in my response?
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Oh wait I did not say that so now who is spreading mis-information?
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Simply stated that in terms of showing off your new airplane the people where probably much happier in the Hotel then the Hospital...