Jetliner

SEATTLE -- The crowd of workers and dignitaries lining Paine Field today held their breath as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner roared down the runway, lifted its nose into the air and then flew north with two chase planes trailing along the horizon and then into a bank of clouds. For the first time, a passenger jetliner with a body and wings made of super-hardened plastics took wing, a milestone that promises to usher in a new era in aviation. The plane was scheduled to circle over the Puget Sound for four or so hours, as Michael Carriker and co-pilot Randall Neville test whether the 787's state-of-the-art wing and electronics systems perform as designed.

The Nigerian man who tried to detonate explosives hidden in his underwear aboard a Detroit-bound jetliner on Christmas Day 2009 has been sentenced to life in prison. Speaking briefly in U.S. District Court in Detroit on Thursday, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 25-year-old son of a wealthy Nigerian banker, called his sentencing "a day of victory" and said he was "proud to kill in the name of God," according to wire service reports. A criminologist who analyzed the transcripts of the FBI interrogation of Abdulmutallab wrote in a report submitted to the judge that the would-be bomber was unrepentant.

Two hijackers who commandeered a jetliner from Sudan's Darfur region and diverted it to a remote desert airstrip in Libya surrendered and freed all hostages after a daylong standoff, officials said. Sudan's consul in the Sahara desert oasis of Kufra, where the plane landed, said the two Darfur men were brought into the airport's VIP lounge. Also freed were crew members whom the hijackers had continued to hold even after releasing 87 passengers earlier. The diplomat, Mohammed Balla Othman, who spoke to the Associated Press by telephone from the VIP room, said that in the last stages of negotiations, the hijackers were asking for asylum in Libya.

Amid rising airfares and growing airline traffic, Southwest Airlines announced an order of 150 new Boeing jets that are designed to be up to 18% more fuel efficient than many of the older planes being replaced. The order of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft combined with a previous Southwest requisition of 200 new jetliners amounts to the largest plane order in Boeing history. The Dallas airline will be the first to take shipment of the 737 MAX, a narrow-body plane with a larger, quieter and more fuel-efficient engine than older models.

A United Airlines 727 jetliner with 52 passengers descended toward the wrong airport today, but was warned off in time and made a safe landing four miles away at its correct destination. The flight crew returned aboard the same aircraft to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and was promptly removed from service pending an investigation, the airline said.

Authorities said at least 82 people were killed today when a Korean Air DC-10 jetliner crashed short of a fogbound airport in Tripoli, Libya, and cartwheeled through an olive grove. It was the second crash of a DC-10 in eight days. A United Air Lines DC-10 crashed in Sioux City, Iowa, on July 19, killing 111 people.

A United Airlines jetliner descending toward Los Angeles International Airport with 94 people aboard came within 200 feet of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration helicopter in what the United pilot described as a "near-miss," officials said Thursday. The Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety Board and DEA have launched their own investigations of the incident, which occurred at 11:10 a.m. Wednesday, about 5 1/2 miles east of the airport.

Boeing Makes Design Changes: Boeing Commercial Airplanes has made design changes to prevent wiring and plumbing mistakes such as those found on 94 Boeing jets in a recent government-ordered inspection, company officials said. Boeing said it was using different-sized fittings, putting the connections in different locations and using labels and color-coding to prevent the problems found in jetliner engine and cargo hold fire detection and extinguishing systems.

Looters descended on the burning wreckage of the Polish LOT jetliner that plunged into a forest south of Warsaw and stole rings and money from the 183 people killed in the crash, a state-owned newspaper reported today. The report came as a government commission continued its investigation into why the Soviet-built Ilyushin 62 slammed into the forest 53 minutes after taking off Saturday from Warsaw's Okecie Airport on a flight to New York.

A Northwest Airlines jetliner with 145 passengers aboard detoured to Orlando, Fla., on Sunday to get medical treatment for six passengers who became ill in flight, airline officials said. The passengers, who complained that they were groggy and nauseated, were released after treatment. Medical officials said the symptoms may have been related to a motion-sickness drug that can cause drowsiness. No food or drinks had been served on the plane, officials said.

D.B. Cooper, the infamous airplane hijacker who vaulted into urban mythology by parachuting out of a jetliner over the Pacific Northwest with a $200,000 ransom, is back on the FBI's radar screen. Cooper, whose case remains the only unsolved airline hijacking in U.S. history, became the stuff of legend on the night of Nov. 24, 1971, when he jumped from a Boeing 727 into the skies between Portland, Ore., and Seattle. He disappeared with the ransom he extorted -- 10,000 $20 bills. The case has remained open, but the trail has been cold despite hundreds of tips, thousands of theories and dozens of breakthroughs in scientific investigation.

Southwest Airlines' older aircraft plus its famously efficient short-haul operations — requiring planes to fly an average of six times a day — probably contributed to the fuselage rupture that forced a jetliner carrying 118 passengers to make an emergency landing in Arizona last week. Aviation experts said the aluminum skin of the 15-year-old Boeing 737-300 could have become fatigued from the stress of daily landings and takeoffs as well as frequent changes in cabin pressure.

Airbus secured more than twice the number of aircraft orders in 2010 than it had anticipated at the start of the year, helping the European manufacturer maintain its lead over Boeing Co. as demand rebounded around the world. Airbus won contracts last year for 644 jets, compared with its original prediction of 300, Chief Executive Tom Enders said Monday. The net order intake came to 574, after 70 cancellations. Boeing won 530 net orders after 95 cancellations and delivered 462 planes.

There will be no more takeoffs for the Juan T. Trippe. The first 747 jetliner to ferry commercial passengers and a symbol of the golden age of air travel was demolished here Sunday as its owners, a South Korean couple, gave up a frustrating, decade-long battle to make a profit from the mammoth piece of aviation history. "So, you've come to take part in the funeral," one of the owners ? who requested that their names not be used ? asked a bystander. After decades of flying to nearly every continent on Earth, the Trippe, named after the Pan-Am airlines founder, was bought in 2000 from a California airplane graveyard by the South Korean couple who transformed it into an aviation-themed restaurant.

The big jet looks forlornly out of place perched in the near-deserted suburban lot, as if it just skidded off a nearby airport runway or crash-landed minutes ago. But this plane has long been grounded, a retired icon of a bygone golden age of air travel. The 4-decade-old former Pan Am jet, the first commercial Boeing 747 ever built, could well be ensconced in an aviation museum, maybe next to the celebrated planes piloted by the Wright brothers or Charles Lindbergh. Instead, it sits on a lot 25 miles northeast of Seoul, far from its U.S. birthplace, an ignominious end to a storied career.

China is aiming to reshape the global aviation industry with a home-grown jetliner, a direct challenge to the supremacy of Boeing and Airbus, the world's only manufacturers of large commercial aircraft. FOR THE RECORD: Chinese jetliner: A Nov. 13 article in Section A about China's effort to build a jetliner to rival industry leaders Boeing and Airbus said one of the country's state-owned carriers, China Airlines, was expected to announce orders soon for the new aircraft, the C919.

The Federal Aviation Administration has taken a number of corrective actions as a result of a runway collision at Los Angeles International Airport last February, a local FAA official said Thursday.