Aviation News

For the first time in nearly three months, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner is in the headlines for a positive reason—they’re returning to the skies! Of course, this comes after battery fires and millions upon millions lost by grounding the jets, but still—good news.

According to Reuters, the fix required for the airplane’s batteries won’t be a cheap one, as the FAA “pegged the cost of repairing United’s six jets at about $2.8 million.” The installation of the modified lithium-ion batteries in Dreamliners should be complete by mid-May, meaning tickets are again being sold for 787 flights.

There are currently 50 Boeing 787 Dreamliners in service with airlines, all of which will be “fixed” and flying again as soon as the airlines can handle it. Here’s the dates for when airlines expect their 787s to again fly with paying passengers:

• security

Pronunciation: AW

Directions: Practice by saying the word pairs and example sentences, then speak the words from this reading.

Word Pairs bow-bone, cow-cone, mouse-moan, out-own

Example sentence: How about a blouse in town?

Examples from this reading: Account 

Reading

Directions: Read the following passage carefully.

Israel’s top legal adviser rebuffed criticism of authorities for asking travellers entering the Jewish state to show border officers their emails, saying the checks affecting only certain foreign nationals were lawful.

The group called the checks a “drastic invasion of privacy … not befitting a democracy”. Israel’s security agencies have been keen to stop pro-Palestinian activists they suspect may be planning anti-Israel activities in the occupied West Bank or inside the Jewish state. 

Weinstein said officers of the internal undercover security service, the Shin Bet, needed “to establish or dispel suspicion against prospective foreign nationals wishing to enter Israel who show initial suspicious signs”.

He said officers were not allowed to access email accounts without the consent of the owner and added that travellers could refuse to cooperate. This did not necessarily mean they would automatically be barred entry.

“The traveller is not asked to reveal passwords … but opens the account on their own. The traveller has a full right to refuse the search and will not be forced to comply, although this will be taken into account when the authorities decide whether to allow the person to enter Israel,” he said.

Marc Grey, an ACRI attorney, said the issue was not so much the matter of revealing the email account’s password but the actual perusal of the private content in the mailbox.

“Passwords are not the issue, email accounts are about as private as it gets,” Grey told Reuters.

He said he did not know how many travellers to Israel had been asked to open their email accounts.

Lila Margalit, another ACRI attorney, said travellers were not on an equal footing when they faced questioning.

“A tourist … to Israel (who is) interrogated at the airport by Shin Bet agents and told to grant access to their email account, is in no position to give free and informed consent. Such ‘consent’, given under threat of deportation, cannot serve as a basis for such a drastic invasion of privacy,” she wrote in an email distributed on Wednesday.

“Allowing security agents to take such invasive measures at their own discretion and on the basis of such flimsy ‘consent’ is not befitting of a democracy.”

Focus on Grammar

The simple past shows that an action ended. For example, the sentence "I ate dinner last night" uses the past of eat , "ate," to show that dinner ended last night.
What action ended in the past in the sentence(s) below?

   Directions: Identify how the simple_pastis used in the sentence(s) below

1. Passwords are not the issue, email accounts are about as private as it gets, Grey told Reuters.
2. He said officers were not allowed to access email accounts without the consent of the owner and added that travellers could refuse to cooperate.
3. Such' consent', given under threat of deportation, cannot serve as a basis for such a drastic invasion of privacy, she wrote in an email distributed on Wednesday.
4. to Israel( who is) interrogated at the airport by Shin Bet agents and told to grant access to their email account, is in no position to give free and informed consent.

Word Roots & Stems

Rule: The suffix er adds "one who" to the meaning of a word, like driver.

Directions: Identify the word that ends with -er in each sentence and write it on the line.

1. Israel's top legal adviser rebuffed criticism of authorities for asking travellers entering the Jewish state to show border officers their emails, saying the checks affecting only certain foreign nationals were lawful.The group called the checks a "drastic invasion of privacy & hellip;

1. He said officers were not allowed to access email accounts without the consent of the owner and added that travellers could refuse to cooperate.

1. Israel's top legal adviser rebuffed criticism of authorities for asking travellers entering the Jewish state to show border officers their emails, saying the checks affecting only certain foreign nationals were lawful.The group called the checks a "drastic invasion of privacy & hellip;

Directions: Fill in the blanks below, just as in the models.

Vocabulary Practice

FILL IN THE BLANK

Directions: Use the word bank to identify the word that best completes the sentence.

1. The police _______________ed that he was at home at the time of the crime.
2. Her long white dress _______________ a new bride.
3. He _______________ed his secret bank account from work.
4. He felt very angry about her _______________ of his report.
5. She helps clean the park as a _______________ to her community.
6. Turning on the lights _______________led the boy's belief that there was a monster under the bed.
7. The _______________ step of a revolution is to kill all the lawyers.
8. She spoke a _______________ language I did not understand.
9. The engineering team and the designers _______________d to make the new model.
10. He was _______________ from entering the burning building by the firefighters.
11. Kublai Khan led the Mongol army in two _______________s of Japan, but both failed.
12. The police _______________ he robbed the bank.
13. She quickly _______________ him when he invited her to dinner.
14. The death penalty is a _______________ punishment.

Vocabulary Practice

MATCHING

Directions: Write the letter of word that matches the definition on the line. If it helps, feel free to also draw a line between the definition and the matching word.

1. dispel
2. drastic
3. foreign
4. invasion
5. service
6. barred
7. befitting
8. rebuffed
9. cooperate
10. access
11. criticism
12. suspect
13. establish
14. initial
15. Foreign

• 
  _______ To determine if something is true or not.
• 
  _______ Be proper; appropriate.
• 
  _______ Get into somewhere or gain the use of something.
• 
  _______ Comments and judgment about work or behavior; usually negative.
• 
  _______ Work done for the benefit of another.
• 
  _______ Scatter or cause to go away.
• 
  _______ First.
• 
  _______ From a different place or culture.
• 
  _______ Of different origin.
• 
  _______ Work together with.
• 
  _______ To block or prevent.
• 
  _______ An act of forcefully entering as an enemy.
• 
  _______ To think something is true.
• 
  _______ Refuse or deny impolitely.
• 
  _______ Extreme.

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Matthew Harper boarded a flight from Midway Airport, Chicago, to Denver, but says he was approached by a flight attendant after he had taken his seat.

He was asked to leave the plane, and was then allegedly questioned over whether he was aware of the airline's "customers of size" policy, which urges larger people to buy two seats. Southwest's "customers of size" policy clearly states passengers who cannot fit between the 17-inch armrests must purchase a second seat. Harper, who weighs 340lbs, said he was aware of it, but that there was an empty seat right next to him.

After about half an hour Harper was let back on the plane, but said he was left "humiliated" by the experience. Harper complained about his treatment and was offered $100, but turned it down, and may launch legal action.

A spokesman for Southwest said the company plans to investigate what happened.

It is not the first time Southwest Airlines has upset an overweight traveller. Back in March 2012, US passenger Kenlie Tiggeman was told by a Southwest Airlines employee that she and her mother were "too fat to fly" when they asked what the weight restrictions were on the flight.

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Boeing has admitted that it may never know what caused the battery malfunctions that resulted in all its 787 Dreamliner aircraft being grounded. The admission came from Boeing’s Larry Loftis, the general manager of the company’s 787 division.

Replacement battery systems are now being fitted to all 50 Dreamliners that had been in operation with airlines around the world. Boeing expects the planes to resume service in the coming weeks.

‘Best practice’

On Friday, US aircraft regulators approved a revamped battery design for the aircraft, paving the way for the fleet to return to the skies. Speaking at a media briefing in London, Mr Loftis said: “It is possible we will never know the root cause.

“It is not uncommon not to have found the single root cause. So industry best practice is to look at all the potential causes and address all of them.”

The groundings of all Dreamliners in January followed two major incidents concerning the plane’s two lithium-ion batteries. Firstly, on 7 January, a battery overheated and started a fire on a Japan Airlines 787 at Boston’s Logan International Airport. Nine days later, an All Nippon Airways 787 had to make an emergency landing in Japan after a battery started to give off smoke.

‘Exhaustive study’

The two lithium-ion batteries are not used when the 787 is in flight. Instead they are operational when the plane is on the ground and its engines are not turned on, and are used to power the aircraft’s brakes and lights. Mr Loftis said Boeing had put 200,000 engineer hours into fixing the problem, with staff working round the clock.

Improved batteries are now being introduced. Mr Loftis explained that the newer batteries did not have to work so hard, and therefore operated at a cooler temperature. In addition, the new batteries are enclosed in stainless steel boxes which have a ventilation pipe that directly goes to the outside of the plane. So Mr Loftis said that any future “rare cases” of battery failure would be “100% contained”, with any smoke immediately leaving the plane.

He added: “We did an exhaustive study of potential causes, and addressed all of them. We do feel that with all the work we have done, we have tackled the potential problems.”

Expanding production

A total of 300 Boeing engineers, pooled into 10 teams, have now started fitting the replacement batteries and battery systems to the 787s in service around the world, and also to those that have been built by Boeing since January.

Mr Loftis said it would take five days per plane to do the necessary work, and that it would be carried out by the order in which airlines first received the planes. For this reason, Japan’s All Nippon Airlines will be the first to get its 787s fixed. Mr Loftis said he did not expect the issue to have any lasting negative impact on the popularity of the Dreamliner among either airlines or passengers. He said that Boeing had continued to make five 787s per month, and that the company was about to increase that to seven, raising output to 10 per month by the end of this year

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