Fact or fiction?

Extremely complicated engineering and aeronautical issues are reduced to 10 second sounds bites on the 6pm news.

The classic without doubt was the US TV news reporter standing on a runway in Chicago telling viewers the DC-10 engine was attached to the wing with one single bolt.

The reporter was covering the tragic crash of an American Airlines DC-10 on May 25, 1979.

In fact there was so much misinformation about that crash, and McDonnell Douglas –builders of the DC-10 – so maligned, that when the truth about what caused that accident came out it was barely recognisable.

Now we are faced with a barrage of “expert commentary” on the battery problems of the Boeing 787.

Investigations into aircraft crashes can take years – and incidents many months.

Of course aircraft manufacturers, engine companies sometimes don’t help by stone walling valid reporting.

Suddenly we are getting reports the 787 design was rushed. The reality is all aircraft programs are careful and methodical, and build on decades of experience and are based on regulator’s standards.

There are also claims about the increased outsourcing on the 787 being solely to blame for the battery problems. Certainly outsourcing is to blame for the long delay in getting the 787 into service but not the failure of batteries.

Boeing has never built batteries, or engines, or seats or many other items on its aircraft.

The grounding of the 787 is the aviation industry at work delivering incredible levels of safety.

And many other US commercial aircraft have been grounded – Lockheed Constellation, Douglas DC-6, Lockheed Electra and the DC-10. And in 2011 Qantas grounded its fleet of A380s over engine issues.

However, the 787 problems have brought back into the media spotlight the roots of the outsourcing of the 787, and lays the blame at the feet of the former McDonnell Douglas shareholders and executives that were running Boeing at the time.

Noted industry analyst, Teal Group’s Richard Aboulafia told The New Yorker: “McDonnell Douglas in effect acquired Boeing with Boeing’s money.”

And thus risk-averse, cost-cutting McDonnell Douglas executives became key players in Boeing.

“After the merger (in 1997) there was a real battle over the future of the company, between the engineers and the finance and sales guys,” Aboulafia told The New Yorker. Under these conditions, getting the company to commit to a major project like the Dreamliner took some doing.

“Some of the board of directors would rather have spent money on a walk-in humidor for shareholders than on a new plane.”

The track record of McDonnell in commercial aircraft is lamentable.

After the take-over of Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967 it only built one new commercial aircraft –the DC-10.

According to the late Jackson McGowan, he resigned at just 55 as president of Douglas Aircraft in the early 1970s because John McDonnell, then VP Finance and Development of McDonnell Douglas (MDC) , nixed the DC-10 Twin that would have flown head-to-head with the fledgling A300.

“I knew damn well that with the McDonnells’ influence, Douglas was not going any place.”

John McDonnell’s cousin, Sandford McDonnell, who became president and CEO of McDonnell Douglas in 1972, later conceded many opportunities were missed. In the company’s Spirit magazine he said “Douglas (McGowan) felt they knew how to run the commercial business better than we – their bosses – and they were probably right.”

Through the 70s and 80s MDC continually rejected opportunities to launch new aircraft because of the risks and thus ended up in the arms of Boeing. Mr McDonnell even killed a deal in 1988 to merge its commercial operations with Airbus.