The Week In Aerospace And Defense

The left GE90 engine on the British Airways Boeing 777-200ER that caught fire on a Las Vegas runway has “multiple breaches of the engine case,” investigators said. All 159 passengers and 13 crew on BA flight 2276 to London Gatwick evacuated the aircraft. Read more

Armed with 30 billion rubles ($438 million) from the Russian government to boost sales of the Sukhoi SSJ 100, state-owned lessor GTLK has placed 32 firm orders and 28 options for the small airliner. They include five early aircraft returned by Aeroflot and five built for UTair Aviation, but deferred by financial problems. Read more (subscribers)

Citing an internal investigation involving possible wrongdoing at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey United Airlines’ board ousted CEO Jeff Smisek and two senior executives on Sep. 8. Smisek was replaced immediately by Oscar Munoz, a long-time United and Continental board member. Read more (subscribers)

Final assembly of an A321ceo for delivery to JetBlue Airways in April 2016 has begun at Airbus’ first U.S. manufacturing facility, to be opened formally in Mobile, Alabama, on Sep. 14. The $600 million facility will employ around 1,000 people and build four A320 family aircraft a month from 2018. Read more (subscribers)

Airbus will not compete against Boeing’s KC-46A for Japan’s four-aircraft tanker requirement, saying it does not have a realistic prospect of winning with the A330 MRTT as the solicitation allows a competing bid to be sourced via a U.S Foreign Military Sale “without a mechanism to make a fair price comparison.” Read more (subcribers) 

The Netherlands is to order 14 Boeing CH-47F Chinooks to replace 11 CH-47Ds. Expected to cost around €838 million ($937 million), the aircraft will have the Common Avionics Architecture System cockpit used in U.S. Army Chinooks, and the six existing Dutch CH-47Fs will be upgraded to the same standard. Read more (subscribers)

Boeing has completed assembly of the final C-17 airlifter at its Long Beach, California, production site, which is to close around year-end. The 279^th and last aircraft is to be delivered to Qatar early in 2016. India has belatedly approved the purchase of three more C-17s, but only one white-tail remains unsold. Read more (subscribers)

The U.S. Air Force is to acquire the first Rolls-Royce T56 Series 3.5 engine upgrade kits for Lockheed Martin C-130s. Although expected to be for only 14 fuel-burn-reducing kits, Rolls says the initial order opens the door to a global upgrade market which, including T56-powered P-3s, could total 500 aircraft. Read more (subscribers)

Avic is developing an export version of China’s Z-19 attack helicopter. First deliveries would be possible in 2017, an official says. The Z-19E is distantly derived from the Airbus AS365 Dauphin, which rotary-wing subsidiary Avicopter builds as the military Z-9 and commercial AC312. Read more (subscribers)

The first Joint Strike Fighter produced outside the U.S. – F-35A aircraft AL-1 - flew on Sep. 7 from the Final Assembly and Check-Out (FACO) facility at Cameri in Italy. The FACO is the first of two planned; the second will be in Japan. As well as Italy’s F-35As and Bs, Cameri will assemble the Netherlands’ F-35As. Read more (subscribers)

SpaceX will debut its Falcon Heavy rocket in April or May 2016 with the first of four missions planned for next year, including two for commercial customers. After the company-funded maiden flight, Falcon Heavy is expected to lift communications satellites for Inmarsat and ViaSat as well as spacecraft for the U.S. Air Force’s STP-2 program. Read more (subscribers)

Norway’s Nammo plans a sub-orbital flight in 2016 of a hybrid motor aimed at next-generation sounding rockets initially and ultimately larger orbital launch systems. Nammo’s Unitary Motor 1 is the initial building block for its North Star sounding rocket and a follow-on launcher family. Read more (subscribers)

Boeing says its CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle is on track to fly in September and December 2017 on the first U.S.-launched human missions to the International Space Station since 2011. A processing facility for crew and cargo versions of the CST-100 opened Sep.4 at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Read more (subscribers)

Elbit Systems has ordered four Airbus Helicopters’ H125s and two H145s for the Israeli Police, and will provide financing, maintenance and spares support for the aircraft, to be delivered by the end of 2016. Hong Kong’s Government Flying Service has ordered seven H175s, launching the public-service variant.