I remember watching a DASH landing at an airshow, both wings fell off, a small fire broke out, and Raymond Baxter saying "....well thats what we call a heavy landing".

Reminded me of another time and place on another Boeing plane which suffered from a mysterious fire which caused the odd crash or two , but after the unit was no longer used and removed a refurbishment overhaul avionics updates or two later that ended that particular problem and the US Air Force still wants the old bomb truck on it's flying inventory until about 2025 or there about !

I wish people would stop bringing up the Heathrow crash-landing in relation to this when talking about the 777's safety record.

The 777 has a great safety record, this grounding is not because of something unsafe on the 777 but because United cut corners on their maintenance. ANY aircraft will become unsafe if you dont perform the necessary maintenance to keep it airworthy.

I think the biggest story here is that an airline actually admitted a mistake and grounded its fleet in order to do the repair, rather then a) trying to cover it up and do a piecemeal inspection or b) being ordered to ground the fleet by the FAA. Also, ive read elsewhere that the FAA had grounded a number of other United aircraft on an unrelated matter (also failing to do some maintenance I've heard but i cant confirm that). My question is why the hell didnt the FAA do a complete audit of United once they found them cutting corners on ANY aircraft maintenance!

Students at my school had a recent incident just yesterday infact, this is what school administrators told us:

Shortly before 7 a.m. this morning, an airplane containing several [School name] administrators and students traveling to the [name] Association meetings had an emergency landing. The flight left Chattanooga around 5:50 a.m. Close to the Cincinnati airport, a fire retardant-chemical released into the cabin. While the oxygen masks did not deploy, the airplane was quickly landed with the passengers instructed to use emergency exits to get out immediately. Emergency crews were on the ground to assist. No injuries were reported.

I'm not sure what Airline company it was though. but maybe its the same...

Indeed this is different to the 777 crash / crash-landing, however people will not stop talking about that until Boeing & the CAA stop procrastinating & publish the cause of that near tragedy.

If there's nothing to hide, then let's have all the nothing out in the open.

Oh FFS, grow up !

"... Boeing & the CAA stop procrastinating & publish the cause of that near tragedy"

It's not about procrastinating or trying to hide something, it's about doing a proper and thorough investigation and coming up with real facts backed up by real evidence. If you want fast, just go back and watch the news reports at the time, there were plenty of "armchair experts" ready to speculate there and then about the cause - and guess what, they were mostly very wrong ! Our AAIB is respected around the world for the quality of it's investigations, you would be amazed at the lengths they will go to in finding the true cause of accidents.

So you can have fast or correct - I'll take correct if you don't mind.

Thanks - was going to say exactly the same.

@ Tim - If they published within a month, do you really think you'd trust their results? Or would you be crying "Coverup" at the top of your lungs?

I did work experience at the AAIB for 4 weeks while studying Aeronautical Engineering. If you want to see the type of investigation the AAIB publish, go look at their website, and try to imagine how many manhours go into each report - all are publicly available at http://www.aaib.gov.uk/publications/index.cfm

lol @ grow up. who should?

Don't forget that the 1996 regulations require them to make the report public "in the shortest time possible".

In this incident where all parties involved are fully available for interview still, and all parts of the aircraft are fully available for inspection and control systems are basically intact, there should not be the delays in publishing which can arise with more major incidents such as those over water or other difficult terrain, for which the regulations still expect a conclusion within a year.

Japanese 747 falls out the sky because the rear bulkhead cracked due to stress caused by routine flight operations (ie take-off and landing).

737 crashes onto motorway at Kegworth because crew pulled wrong fire handle after wrong (incorrectly wired) warning light warns of engine fire.

Just two examples of where superior Boing design and craftsmanship have led to the loss of life, but the fleets were not grounded for even a single day.

Contrast that with the Air France Concorde incident (all Concordes grounded at the FAA's demand, even the BA ones that had had the anti-fire tank liners fitted) and the demand from Boeing that *all* Airbus be grounded following an American Airlines A300 crash.

One rule for Boing, one for everyone else (and don't get me started on Uncle Sam's "gift" of NASA research to the American airliner manufacturers whilst whinging that the EU should not be allowed to assist Airbus in any way, shape or form. And as for the "Open Skies" travesty...)

Paris, cos it looks like she's got about as much of a clue...