Boeing 787 'safe', but…
January 11, 2013US plane maker Boeing on Friday said it remained convinced of the safety of its 787 Dreamliner passenger aircraft.
"We remain fully confident in the design and production system," Boeing said in a statement which followed a series of recent incidents, including a crack in a cockpit window, a fire and a fuel leak.
At a press conference in Washington, the head of Boeing's Commercial Airplane Unit, Ray Connor, told reporters he was not seeing anything "exceptionally unusual" for a new plane despite the glitches in recent days.
Thorough checks ahead
Connor insisted the recent incidents had not been caused by outsourcing production or by ramping up production too quickly.
But Boeing made a point of emphasizing that it welcomed a joint review of safety issues with its 787 passenger jet.
Earlier on Friday, US aviation regulators said they'd launch a comprehensive review of the Dreamliner's critical systems, including design, manufacture and assembly, adding that a special focus would be put on the jet's electrical components. But Michael Hurta of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) hastened to note that so far nothing in the data the agency had seen suggested the plane wasn't safe.
hg/dr (AP, Reuters)