Boeing

The Netherlands entire contingency of 28 Apache helicopters was grounded due to an apparent “defect” in the tail rotor, the Ministry of Defense announced on Wednesday. The problem was discovered during maintenance work, according to the ministry’s Defense Helicopter Command.

“Shutting down flight programs is a common measure for this type of observation,” the ministry said in a statement. The nature of the problem and its effects were under investigation and not revealed.

An Ethiopian Airlines passenger jet crashed shortly after takeoff on Sunday, killing all 157 people onboard the aircraft. Five German people among the dead were originally misidentified as Dutch people by the authorities in Kenya.

This was corrected later Sunday afternoon and affirmed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Netherlands at 4:20 p.m. on Twitter.

There is a worldwide shortage in pilots. Boeing estimates that 790 thousand pilots will be needed in the next 20 years. KLM is poaching pilots from competitors TUI and Corendon, sources from within KLM told the Telegraaf. 

"It is a fact that there is more demand for pilots than supply in the market at the moment", a TUI spokesperson said to the newspaper. According to him, TUI pilots that are quitting are mainly pilots of planes used for international destinations.

Corendon also said that their pilots are being hired away by KLM, according to the newspaper. 

An Apache helicopter crashed into an electricity transmission tower and high-voltage cables Monday evening, before making an emergency landing near Zoelmond, Gelderland. Neither of the two crew members onboard were injuries in the incident, nor were there any injuries on the ground.

It left roughly 24 thousand customers without power in the region. 

The Dutch government is paying much more than necessary for its new airplane - a Boeing 737 Business Jet, NRC reports based on information and documents from stakeholders. According to the newspaper, the government rejected an offer from Boeing competitor Airbus for a similar device that was nearly 18 million euros cheaper. Airbus was also able to deliver the plane earlier than Boeing, according to NRC.

A Boeing 777 was shot down by a missile over east Ukraine on July 17, 2014, the Dutch Safety Board announced in their final report into the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. "Flight MH17 crashed as a result of the detonation of a warhead outside the airplane," tearing off the front portion of the aircraft, the Board concluded.

Dutch company Fugro, involved in the search for the missing Malaysia Airline flight 370, says it is anxious to learn the origin of debris that washed up on Réunion last in July. The items found on the French island east of Madagascar includes a piece of a Boeing 777 wing, empty bottles, and luggage material.

Russian opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta claims to have obtained a confidential analytical report on the MH17 crash that suggests it was a BUK-M1 missile that shot down the plane. The newspaper believes it is likely a report by official Russian military experts, and will be submitted to Dutch and international experts investigating the crash.

It seems that pieces of flight MH17 wreckage has turned up in a museum in Russia, RTL reports.

KLM will cut 22 flights from its schedule beginning in May after the airline was unable to come to an agreement with its labour unions on a new collective bargaining agreement. Regular flights to Bangkok, Nairobi and Shanghai will be scrapped, while trips to new destination Edmonton is postponed, newswire ANP reported.

Civil airspace over eastern Ukraine should have been closed at least two months before a missile brought down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, aviation experts said this weekend. Pointing to the increased use of the airspace for warfare in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, the analysts say it makes no sense the airspace was still open for civilian flights on July 17, 2014, when the Boeing 777 blew apart in the sky.