Plane Nation

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Investigations have begun into an incident today involving a Qantas Airways Boeing 747-400 that was forced to make an emergency descent and diversion to Manila after a large section of its fuselage separated, resulting in a rapid decompression.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) says it is dispatching a team of four investigators to the Philippine capital to assist local authorities with the probe into what it describes as “a serious incident”

Here is a picture of a Boeing 767 with blended winglets.

Bombardier today announced that its Board of Directors has granted approval for the launch of the CSeries family of aircraft, a new game-changing five abreast commercial airliner family, with the economics, performance, environmental and passenger-oriented improvements demanded by airline customers for the next quarter century. Entry into service is scheduled for 2013.

Boeing Wednesday increased its 20-year forecast for global commercial jetliner deliveries for the sector by 2.8%, forecasting that demand for fuel-efficient replacement aircraft will outweigh capacity reductions by U.S. carriers.

Boeing had pegged Dreamliner No. 4 as a turning point for its delayed 787 jet program. But now the crucial program has been set back by a production problem on this fourth flight-test airplane.

The horizontal stabiliser of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner was successfully tested by a Finmeccanica company, Alenia Aeronatuica, early this month.

The destructive test was overseen by Boeing engineers, representatives of the US Federal Aviation Administration and members of the European Aviation Safety Agency, in Alenia’s Pomigliano plant in Naples.