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- <text id=89TT2240>
- <title>
- Aug. 28, 1989: American Notes:Aviation
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Aug. 28, 1989 World War II:50th Anniversary
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 15
- American Notes
- AVIATION
- Putting Fuel Near the Fire
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Despite recent structural mishaps with McDonnell Douglas'
- problem-plagued DC-10 jumbo jet, the aircraft manufacturer
- plans to add an additional fuel tank beneath the rear engine of
- an updated version of the plane called the MD-11. Some startled
- pilots at Delta Air Lines -- which is buying the new plane --
- are outraged that the designers would place 2,000 gal. of
- combustible fuel right under the same engine that disintegrated
- last month on a United Airlines DC-10. If the controversial fuel
- bladder had been on the ill-fated United plane when the engine
- disintegrated, the pilots say, the jet would have blown up at
- 35,000 ft.
- </p>
- <p> Delta engineers and McDonnell Douglas say the extra tank
- inside the jet's horizontal stabilizer will better "trim" the
- plane in flight and is no more dangerous in the back of the
- plane than on the wing. "About all you'd get is a leak if an
- (engine) fragment went through that tank," claimed a McDonnell
- Douglas spokesman.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-