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Comment by ls612 | Hacker News Reader

After the unfortunate incident in Japan this week, the Boeing 787, a plane designed in the 2000s and flying since 2013, is now the only passenger airliner without a hull loss. So they are clearly capable of producing modern safe airliners post merger.

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There was an engineer who got fired for worrying publicly about the fire safety of the carbon fiber hulls during the 787 leadup.

It turned out I worked in the same building he had, and I found his old office. Word is after he left they locked it up, like a crime scene. I think they were worried his whistleblowing would turn to leaks and I guess they thought his office would have some sort of evidence? It was an interior office so no big loss real estate wise, but that was a super weird chapter.

He was painted as an aluminum bigot but I always wondered.

I used to talk to a coworker about how Mitsubishi - which built the 787 wings (something Boeing has never done before) - had introduced a regional jet and would be coming after a Boeing’s lunch. He was not worried. I’m a little shocked he’s been right so far. In fact that particular division of MHI seems to be defunct as of last February, which is news to me, so I suppose he was right. Maybe the 787 experience was as unpleasant for them as it was for Boeing.

> Word is after he left they locked it up, like a crime scene. I think they were worried his whistleblowing would turn to leaks and I guess they thought his office would have some sort of evidence?

If Boeing did clear it out, they'd be open to charges of doing a coverup. The smart thing to do is lock it up as is.

From the looks of it the composite fuselage of the A350 did its job splendidly, it held out against the fire long enough for everyone to evacuate, only flashing over after >20 minutes.

An emergency divert due to serious in-air fire could last far longer than 20 minutes.

And at speed it would act like a blast furnace.

That everyone survived the collision last week makes be feel better but still not great.

> It turned out I worked in the same building he had, and I found his old office. Word is after he left they locked it up, like a crime scene. I think they were worried his whistleblowing would turn to leaks and I guess they thought his office would have some sort of evidence? It was an interior office so no big loss real estate wise, but that was a super weird chapter.

If they were worried about a lawsuit from him they might want to preserve everything in case it was subpoenaed regardless of guilt or innocent - possibly especially if they thought his claims were wrong.

I believe I was the only one who found it weird or noteworthy. But it was locked for years.

I don’t feel like hull loss without context is a meaningful metric of anything. At the end of the day they are airplanes flown by pilots. You could have a less safe design flown by highly competent pilots and never lose a plane, or an incredibly sophisticated, technically advanced aircraft where the pilot makes a decision resulting the destruction of the aircraft.

Do you have a source for that? This lists a number of others: https://simpleflying.com/aircraft-types-zero-hull-losses/

Huh I never realized the 717 had no crashes either that’s even more impressive considering the era it was designed in tbh. The others on that list look like subtypes (ie the 747-8; there have been numerous 747 crashes).

To be fair, the 717 is a DC-9 subtype if we're being honest with ourselves. If the 717 counts as type without a hull loss, the 747-8 should count as well.

A380?

Producing, what about “designing safe aircraft post-merger”?

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