Boeing In Court, Space, Obits, Union News

A bunch of Boeing news is on the wires today and while each individual item may seem particularly irrelevant to your life by itself, perhaps if Seattlest groups them together into a Boeing Roundup they'll equal a post you'll care to read.

· Last month was a pretty shaky one in terms of commercial aviation, and a number of disasters, near disasters and near misses will continue raining debris onto Boeing for the foreseable future. Specifically, a family of survivors from the recent crash in Peru jungle crash are bringing suit against Boeing for, of course, unspecified damages. That accident took 40 passenger lives when a sudden hail storm pushed the airplane off course during landing, but the New York subway toll collector is suing for what happened after the crash. Allegedly, seats trapped people, emergency lights didn't engage, emergency doors didn't open, etc, which lead not to the injury of him or his family, but contributed to their post-traumatic stress.

· NASA signed a contract with Boeing recently that reportedly pays the aircraft manufacturer $68.35 million to produce what seems like an industrial strength battery recharger to Seattlest.

The Station-Shuttle Power Transfer System (SSPTS) allows the Orbiter to use electricity generated by the Station's solar arrays. The additional Station power supplements Shuttle fuel cells, saving onboard supplies of hydrogen and oxygen.

No word on whether Radio Shack was asked to bid.

· Last Thursday former Boeing CEO Lew Platt passed away. Platt served as the head of Boeing for seven years, but also spent time as the CEO of a few other companies including Hewlett-Packard, 7-Eleven and Kendall-Jackson Wines.

· Finally, Boeing machinists remain on strike. International Association of Machinists, District 751 membership voted to strike two weeks ago and negotiations with the company have stalled since then with machinists currently picketing in Everett.