The battle for supremacy between Airbus and Boeing is heating up. Eyeing potential contracts with US-based companies, the European airplane maker on Monday opened a new plant in the southern state of Alabama.
Mobile, Alabama is hardly synonymous with aerospace engineering, but that could be changing.
Airbus – the European plane firm with its headquarters in Toulouse, France – has inaugurated a new manufacturing plant in the Gulf Coast city. It is the company’s first production site in the United States, and only its second overseas assembly line.
Airbus says it has invested more than half a billion euros in Mobile as it launches its new facility, claiming there could be a market for up to 5,000 US-built planes over the next 20 years.
It could employ as many as 1,000 workers by 2018 at the site, which will be dedicated to the production of A320 planes.
US rival Boeing has not taken the aggressive business move on its home turf lightly, warning local officials that the European company could take off abruptly if its business plan flops.
France 24
United Airlines hangar at Newark collapses
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Nine workers were trapped Wednesday when a hangar at Newark Airport collapsed.
An old United Airlines hangar was in the process of being dismantled when it collapsed at around 1:25 p.m.
The collapse brought out highly trained first responders including the Port Authority’s Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting units, as well as the regional Urban Search and Rescue team, CBS2’s Tony Aiello reported.
It obviously got the attention of people working nearby.
“We just heard a big boom, everyone came outside, started screaming ‘a building collapsed,’” said Darius LaBad.
The unused hangar was being dismantled to make way for aircraft parking.
Suddenly the building collapsed, with the section nearest the runway falling completely to the ground, Aiello reported.
A forklift operator told WCBS 880’s Levon Putney the noise made everyone run outside.
“Like an explosion, man,” he said.
Four of the nine workers were injured — two seriously enough to be transported to University Hospital.
The North Jersey firm Catco Demolition was doing the work. It’s an experienced contractor that features a section on its website promoting various safety initiatives, Aiello reported.
A spokeswoman for Catco had no comment other than to say the cause of the collapse is under investigation, Aiello reported.
CBS New York