Jay Inslee: “You used the word ``strong,'' and I think that's very important here, because the Boeing airplane, the Boeing 767 was…”

“You used the word ``strong,'' and I think that's very important here, because the Boeing airplane, the Boeing 767 was found by the Air Force's own evaluation to have five times as many survivability discriminators as the Airbus plane. Now, that's a fancy term to mean it had five times as many characteristics that would allow the plane and its pilots and its crew to survive and complete its mission. It is a stronger airplane from the sense of survivability. You used that term, and I just want to use a quote by former United States Air Force Chief of Staff and Retired General Ronald Fogelman who stressed survivability as an asset of the Boeing plane. He said, ``When I saw the Air Force's assessment of both candidate aircraft in the survivability area, I was struck by the fact that they clearly saw the KC-767 as a more survivable tanker.'' This was a statement to the ARSAG in his role that he was serving in as a consultant of Boeing. He said, ``To be survivable, tanker aircraft must contain systems to identify and defeat threats, provide improved situational awareness to the aircrew to avoid threat areas, and protect the crew in event of attack. The KC-767 has a superior survivability rating and will have greater operational utility to the joint commander and provide better protection to aircrews that must face real-world threats.'' Now, this just isn't Boeing talk.…”