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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Thursday it appeared that the downing of a Malaysian airliner near the Ukraine-Russia border was not an accident and that the passenger jet apparently was "blown out of the sky." "This is truly a grave situation," Biden said in a speech in Detroit. He said he had seen reports that Americans may have been on board and that "we're now working every minute to try to confirm those reports as I speak." Biden said the downing of the jet was tragic. He spoke by phone to Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko.

Qatar, the world’s top liquefied natural gas exporter, is using its gas money to cash in on some top-of-the-line U.S. supplied military hardware. Qatar’s defense minister, Hamad Bin Ali al-Attiyah, met with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and signed acceptance letters for $11 billion worth of Apache attack helicopters, Patriot missile defense batteries and anti-tank Javelin missiles, the Pentagon said in a statement Monday. “Today’s signing ceremony underscores the strong partnership between the United States and Qatar in the area of security and defense and will help improve our bilateral cooperation across a range of military operations,” said Rear Adm....

<p>The Boeing Co. may now proceed with development of almost 500 acres near its assembly plant in North Charleston.</p>

Aerospace giant Boeing finds itself in a fishy fight against Native Americans and environmentalists over pollution in the waterways -- a disagreement that could affect where Washington state's largest employer builds the next generation of planes. At the heart of the fight, which could impact thousands of jobs, is a peculiar question: How much locally caught fish do Washingtonians eat, and what are the health risks? Green groups, alone with Washington state tribes, have sued the Environmental Protection Agency to push for increased fish consumption rates -- currently set at six-and-a-half grams a day. If the number is set higher,...

SUPERIOR, MT -- A Montana Rail Link train derailed near Superior Thursday, sending Boeing aircraft fuselages into a river. [Photo in Comments]

Sikorsky and Boeing Team Submit New Army Helicopter Design By: Dave Majumdar Published: June 17, 2014 2:00 PM Updated: June 17, 2014 2:00 PM A joint Sikorsky-Boeing team has submitted their initial design for a new high-speed compound helicopter called the SB-1 Defiant to the U.S. Army. “Last week we submitted our initial design and risk report to the customer,” said Doug Shidler, one of the two co-program directors for the industry team, during a Tuesday teleconference. “Next week we will be conducting our initial design and risk review with them.” The high-speed compound helicopter design is the team’s entry...

Boeing is formulating a concept for a hybrid variant of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet equipped with the electronic signal detection capabilities of the EA-18G Growler as it seeks to attract orders for new aircraft and upgrades to older models. The resulting aircraft would resemble an E/A-18G that lacks ALQ-99 jamming pods for electronic attack, preserves the ALQ-218 electronic receiver and adds weapons now only carried by the F/A-18E/F, says Boeing vice-president Mike Gibbons. “That hybrid just starts with the simple notion of take the sensor suite of the Growler and move it to a basically strike platform and then you...

Criticism will rain down Wednesday on the Export-Import Bank as members of an influential House panel debate whether it’s time to disband the agency. Fred Hochberg, the chairman of the embattled bank, will square off in testimony against House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), who is leading the charge to let the bank’s charter expire in September. Hensarling and other members are likely to press Hochberg about reports that the bank has suspended or removed four officials for taking kickbacks, a controversy that could strengthen the hand of Ex-Im’s foes. Business supporters swarmed Capitol Hill ahead of the...

Explanation: Bright stars of Sagittarius and the center of our Milky Way Galaxy lie just off the wing of a Boeing 747 in this astronomical travel photo. The stratospheric scene was captured earlier this month during a flight from New York to London, 11,0000 meters above the Atlantic Ocean. Of course the sky was clear and dark at that altitude, ideal conditions for astronomical imaging. But there were challenges to overcome while looking out a passenger window of the aircraft moving at nearly 1,000 kilometers per hour (600 mph). Over 90 exposures of 30 seconds or less were attempted with...

Saving energy is not an easy task but how do the Boeing engineers do it? The answer is flying above you.

United Flight 1637 was returning off-duty Air Force Captain Mike Gongol, his family and 157 other souls from their Christmas vacation when disaster struck. The Boeing 737's pilot suffered a devastating heart attack at 30,000 feet on the way from Des Moines to Denver, forcing Gongol to rush to the cockpit and help guide the plane to an emergency landing. His heroic actions have gone unheralded until now, as Gongol recalls the dramatic moment he answered the chilling announcement on the December 30 flight, 'Does anyone know how to fly a plane?'

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – Boeing expects to launch the first unmanned test flight of their commercial CST-100 manned ‘space taxi’ in “early 2017,” said Chris Ferguson, commander of NASA’s final shuttle flight in an exclusive one-on-one interview with Universe Today for an inside look at Boeing’s space efforts. Ferguson is now spearheading Boeing’s human spaceflight capsule project as director of Crew and Mission Operations. “The first unmanned orbital test flight is planned in January 2017 … and may go to the station,” Ferguson told me during a wide ranging, in depth discussion about a variety of human spaceflight topics...

A U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge issued an injunction late Wednesday prohibiting a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing from proceeding with plans to buy Russian-made rocket engines. SpaceX sued the federal government Monday, protesting the Air Force’s award of a lucrative space contract, saying it should have been competitively bid. In the suit, SpaceX criticizes United Launch Alliance (ULA) for using Russian engines in some of its rockets, which SpaceX founder Elon Musk said might be a violation of U.S. sanctions and was unseemly at a time when Russia “is the process of invading Ukraine.” Musk alleged...

Malaysia’s former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has questioned whether flight MH370 crashed into the southern Indian Ocean and has blamed Boeing, the plane’s maker, for its disappearance. Dr Mahathir, who maintains a powerful influence in his country’s ruling party, also suggested the reason why the passengers and crew never acted to stop whatever was happening on board was because they were “somehow incapacitated". “Even if the pilot wants to commit suicide, the co-pilot and the cabin crew would not allow him to do so without trying something,” he said. “But no one, not even the passengers, did anything.” Writing in...

Lockheed’s strategy of basing its F-35 marketing strategy on its “stealth” capabilities is beginning to backfire as their effectiveness is being increasingly challenged by competitors and outside analysts. (RAAF photo) Boeing has been loudly criticising Lockheed Martin’s F-35 in hopes that the Navy and other clients will buy more of its EA-18G Growlers for support and F/A-18 Super Hornets as contingency. Developed in a Joint Strike Fighter contract that Lockheed won over Boeing in 2001, the F-35 is wildly over budget and has run into various design problems. Chief among them, according to Boeing, is the weakness of its stealth...

EDITED Boeing's CEO faced pointed questions about its charitable donation to the Clinton Foundation in the same year that then-Secy of State Hillary Clinton advocated on its behalf on an official tax-financed trip to Russia. David Almasi, shareholder and representative of the National Center for Public Policy Research think tank, asked the question, and gave an indication of the kinds of challenges that companies could face as Hillary weighs a run for president. Dozens of major corporations have made charitable donations to the Clinton Foundation in recent years. Almasi called the Boeing donation a "clear conflict of interest" that seemed...

The latest news to come out of Ukraine doesn’t involve Vice President Joe Biden, European natural gas supplies, or Vladimir Putin’s insatiable appetite for the resurrection of the Soviet Union. In fact, it hits a bit closer to home. America’s spy satellites, as it turns out, is dependent upon Russian provided technology to reach orbit. That’s right… Not only are our astronauts hitching rides to the Russian-run “international” space station, but even our spy satellites have to hitch a ride via Putin’s Russian Military industrial complex. And any sanctions that could come out of the situation in Ukraine, may just...

A civilian cargo aircraft crashed at Bagram Air Field near the Afghan capital Kabul on Monday, killing all seven people aboard. The plane came down shortly after take-off and crashed within the boundaries of the US-run airbase, a NATO spokesperson at the base said. The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the crash, but the coalition dismissed the claim as "false" in a statement to AP. The cause of the crash is being investigated by emergency crews, but no sign of insurgent activity in the area was spotted at the time, the statement added.

Senator Graham aggressively fought President Obama's union appointees at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) when they filed a frivolous complaint against Boeing's decision to build a production facility in South Carolina. The labor unions were so upset about Lindsey's efforts they retaliated by filing a baseless ethics charge. Lindsey's response: "I will not be intimidated." He refused to back down, the ethics charge was dismissed, and Boeing prevailed - saving thousands of South Carolina jobs. Lindsey has introduced legislation to restrict the NLRB's authority and prohibit the NLRB from having a say in where American companies can do business....

Somebody on Twitter posted an upbeat message saying the US delegation to the latest round of talks with Iranian officials was quite optimistic. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a born optimist and I love optimism, but I’d rather revel in victory than hope for good news, and the Iranians have every reason to revel. The Obama crowd has just ok’d something the Tehran tyrants have desperately wanted since the eighties: spare parts [1] for their long-grounded American passenger aircraft. Boeing and General Electric were given export licenses by the Treasury Department and everyone involved has been chanting “we take...