Free Republic

(Reuters) - Southwest Airlines (LUV.N) said it expected to cancel 300 flights scheduled for Saturday to allow inspections of 79 aircraft from its Boeing 737 fleet, after one of its planes made an emergency landing with a gaping hole in the fuselage. Passengers aboard Southwest Flight 812 from Phoenix to Sacramento on Friday heard a loud noise and the hole appeared suddenly at about mid cabin, forcing the pilot to land at a military base in Yuma, Arizona. [Read more at link]

Boeing told me Monday that workers have finally joined the nose section of the 787 to the forward fuselage, but a spokeswoman admitted the two composite fuselage barrels were not a seamless fit and the solution proved "challenging.'' The Everett factory source who I previously quoted in this blog as saying there were unexpected problems in trying to join fuselage sections told me that loads had to be applied by engineers to finally connect the forward and nose sections. This required that some internal structure installed before the sections arrived in Everett be removed to make the massive one-piece composite...