Air & Space: Airliner Repair, 24/7 Jim Testin, director of Airliner repair services at the Boeing factory in Everett, Washington, made a prediction in July 2007 based on 27 years of experience. “I can tell you this: Something will always happen on Christmas Eve,” he said with the certainty of a man who has missed many family gatherings.Five months later, on the night of December 24, a tow tractor pushed a Boeing 767 away from the gate at a busy European airport. And pushed. (Air & Space agreed not to publish the name of the airline or any location.) Passengers heard “a very loud noise” and were invited to disembark via roll-away stairs. An ocean and a continent away, at Boeing’s Commercial Airplanes Operations Center in Seattle, an immense video screen displayed the status of the airliner shoved tail-first into a 14-foot blast-diversion fence. It was officially AOG—Airplane On Ground. For an airline with tickets to sell, that is exactly where you don’t want an airplane that can earn more than $200,000 a day.From the dents and dings incurred on crowded taxiways to a jumbo jet bobbing in a Tahitian lagoon, Boeing AOG teams have seen and repaired it all. On call 24/7/365, ready to go anywhere around the world, Jim Testin’s quick responders keep over 12,000 extravagantly complex airliners airborne.... (read the rest)
