United's First 787 Rolls out of Paint Hangar and other 787 news

United's First 787 Rolls out of Paint Hangar, a photo by The Boeing Company on Flickr.

Boeing and United Airlines rolled out the first 787 (ZA288, LN 53, N20904) for United Airlines in a webcast early this morning. The aircraft is due to be delivered by the end of September and placed into service sometime in the fall flying domestic routes at first then expanding into international routes starting with Houston - Tokyo.

Today the NTSB said that they are investigating the GEnx engine incident along with Boeign and GE at GE's plant in Oho. The engine will be trucked there in the next few days where it will be disassembled to examine each part. Prelionarily, GE is saying that there is no safety issue but they will contiue to work with the NTSB to figure out what happened. Now there is now word on if ZA238 (LN 54, VT-ANJ) is to receive a new engine or not but Boeing did fly ZA461 (LN 58, A7-BCB) today without incident. It does look like that this icident is a one off issue as Boeing, GE and the FAA would have grounded all airplanes flying the GEnx engine which includes 20+ 747 and 4 787s.

Here's the test of the NTSB statement:

NTSB investigating Boeing 787 engine failure

July 31, 2012

WASHINGTON - The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating an engine failure that occurred on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner during a taxi test in Charleston, South Carolina.

On Saturday, July 28, 2012, Boeing and General Electric, the engine manufacturer, notified the NTSB that a Boeing 787 experienced an engine failure during a pre-delivery taxi test. As a result of the failure, it has been reported that the engine left debris on the active runway at Charleston International Airport and caused a brush fire. There were no passengers aboard the aircraft nor were there any fatalities or injuries.

Upon the notification of the incident, the NTSB sent an aviation investigator with extensive expertise in aircraft powerplants, to the scene on Sunday to gather information to better understand the circumstances of the event.

As a result, the NTSB decided to conduct an investigation and has named David Helson as the Investigator in Charge. In the next few days, an NTSB aircraft powerplants expert and a metallurgist from the NTSB Materials Lab will travel to a General Electric facility in Cincinnati, OH, to lead and coordinate the disassembly and examination of the engine in question.

The Federal Aviation Administration, Boeing and General Electric are parties to the investigation.