The Boeing 787 Dreamliner Thread

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21038128

16 January 2013 Last updated at 15:18 GMT

Top Japan airlines ground Boeing 787s after emergency

Japan's two main airlines have grounded their Boeing 787 Dreamliners after one was forced to make an emergency landing because of battery problems.

All Nippon Airways (ANA) grounded its fleet of 17 Dreamliners when its flight NH 692 from Yamaguchi Ube was forced to land shortly after take-off.

Japan Airlines followed suit, saying it would ground its fleet of seven 787s from 16 January until further notice.

This is the latest setback for Boeing and its problem-hit Dreamliner planes.

Shares in Boeing fell more than 3% at the start of trading in New York following the Japanese announcements on Wednesday.

In recent weeks, Dreamliners have suffered issues including fuel leaks, a cracked cockpit window, brake problems and an electrical fire.

"You're nearing the tipping point where they need to regard this as a serious crisis," said Richard Aboulafia, a senior analyst with the Teal Group in Fairfax, Virginia.

"This is going to change people's perception of the aircraft if they don't act quickly."

Battery malfunction
On Wednesday, ANA's flight NH 692 left Yamaguchi Ube in western Japan at 08:10 local time (23:10 GMT) and headed for Tokyo's Haneda airport.

Earlier reports that smoke was seen in the cockpit were inaccurate, ANA said. The pilots saw a warning on their computer screen telling them there was smoke inside one of the electrical compartments, the airline said. The source of the smoke is not yet known.

The pilots also received a warning that there was a fault in the battery system. ANA said the battery in the forward cargo hold was the same type as the one involved in a fire on another Dreamliner at a US airport last week.

The ANA flight landed at Takamatsu airport at 08:47 on Wednesday after the pilot saw an error message in the cockpit.

"There was a battery alert in the cockpit and there was an odd smell detected in the cockpit and cabin, and [the pilot] decided to make an emergency landing," said Osamu Shinobe, an ANA vice president, at a news conference.

ANA said that the 129 passengers and eight crew were evacuated, with a number of people sustaining minor injuries.

The Reuters news agency reported that five people were injured, while Bloomberg said that one person was sent to hospital. ANA officials were not immediately available to confirm the figures.

The BBC's correspondent in Tokyo, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, said that local television footage showed emergency chutes were deployed from the plane. There were also fire trucks on the runway.

Paul Lewis, a spokesman for Boeing, told the BBC that the planemaker was "aware of the diversion of a 787 operated by ANA to Takamatsu in western Japan".

He added that Boeing "will be working with our customer and the appropriate regulatory agencies".
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Analysis

Rupert Wingfield-Hayes
BBC News, Tokyo

There have been six separate safety incidents with Japanese-owned 787s in the last week and a half. But they are not all equal.

The incident today was by far the most serious. Smoke inside an aircraft while in-flight is always a serious matter. That's why the plane was so quickly diverted, and probably why ANA and JAL have now ordered their fleets to be grounded.

It also looks like this incident may not be isolated. It appears very similar to an electrical fire on board a Japan Airlines 787 in the United States last week.

The source of that fire was the 787's lithium Ion battery pack. All the way back in 2007, the US Federal Aviation Administration expressed concern about the installation of Lithium Ion batteries on board the 787 because of their known problem with so-called "thermal runaway". It's a problem that has caused mobile phones and laptop computers to catch fire in the past.

The 787 is not the only aircraft to use Lithium Ion battery packs. The Airbus A380 uses a smaller number. And the upcoming Airbus A350 will use a much larger number
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner#Operational_issues

Operational issues
In the Dreamliner's first year of service, at least four aircraft suffered from electrical systems problems. Boeing CEO James McNerney told media outlets in December 2012 that the problems were no greater than those experienced by the company with the introduction of other new models, such as the Boeing 777.[167] On November 25, 2012, it was reported that Air India had requested a team of Boeing engineers come to India to address issues described as "teething problems" with its aircraft.[168]

On January 7, 2013, a battery overheated and started a fire in an empty 787 operated by Japan Airlines (JAL) at Boston's Logan International Airport.[169][170] A second 787 also operated by JAL experienced a fuel leak on January 8, and its flight from Boston was canceled.[171] On January 9, United Airlines reported a problem in one of its six 787s with the wiring in the same area as the battery fire on JAL's airliner; the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board subsequently opened a safety probe.[172] On January 11, 2013, a cockpit window cracked and another engine was found to have a fuel leak.[173] On January 11, 2013, the FAA announced a comprehensive review of the 787's critical systems, including the design, manufacture and assembly. US transportation secretary Ray LaHood stated the administration was "looking for the root causes" behind the recent issues. The head of the FAA, Michael Huerta said that so far nothing found "suggests it [787] is not safe".[174]

On January 13, 2013, a Japan Airlines 787 at Narita International Airport outside of Tokyo, was found to have a fuel leak of 26.5 gallons (100 liters) during an inspection. The aircraft reportedly was the same one that had a fuel leak in Boston on January 8,[175] This leak however was caused by a different valve; the causes of the leaks are unknown.[176] Japan's transport ministry have also launched an investigation.[177]

On January 16, 2013, an All Nippon Airways 787 made an emergency landing at Takamatsu Airport on Shikoku Island after the flight crew received a computer warning that there was smoke inside one of the electrical compartments.[178] [179] ANA said that there was an error message in the cockpit citing a battery malfunction. Passengers and crew were evacuated using emergency slides.[180] On the same day after multiple incidents across different 787s, including emergency landings, both Japanese major airlines ANA and JAL announced that they were grounding or suspending flights for their fleets of 787s. These two carriers operate almost half of the 50 Dreamliners delivered to date.[181][182]
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Whats that Ponder a battery box? - don't look too healthy - the nerves settled down from last nites ordeal?
 
Where are the "if it isnt boeing, I aint going" fanboys now?

Seems like they have a serious problem.
 
Albereth said:
Yeah. These Dreamliners are starting to sound like scare busses.
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he he.

All US Boeing 787s grounded as well:
The Federal Aviation Administration’s dramatic grounding of the 787 Dreamliner fleet — the first such order since it suspended DC-10 flights in 1979 after a series of major crashes — will inflict a significant financial hit on Boeing.

Though deliveries are likely to stop, the grounding will not immediately affect production and jobs in the company’s Everett and North Charleston, S.C., assembly plants.

“There are no plans to suspend 787 production,” said Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel.

Details of what investigators found inside the electronics bay of an All Nippon Airways jet after an emergency landing Wednesday in Japan suggest the event was significantly different from what happened a week earlier when a 787 battery fire broke out in Boston.

But the common thread is a faulty lithium-ion main battery. And the order triggered by the malfunctions raises questions about how long it will now take to prove something that was supposed to be already proved — the safety of the plane’s battery and power systems.

The FAA emergency directive applies directly only to U.S.-registered planes, the six operated by United Airlines.

But the two Japanese airlines that operate nearly half of the 50 787s now in service had already grounded their planes, and other regulators and airlines followed suit after the FAA order.

The agency’s directive says that “before further flight” Boeing prove “that the batteries are safe.”

To do so, investigators will need to ascertain quickly whether the problem involves a simple manufacturing defect, or whether that technology is deficient and needs to be swapped for another battery type.

The emergency directive specifically “requires modification of the battery system, or other actions” before the 787 can fly again.

Weeks, not days

That is likely to take weeks, not days, analysts suggest.

Ken Herbert, senior vice president with San Francisco-based investment bank Imperial Capital, said stopping final assembly would back up the supplier pipeline and cause work stoppages all over the world at great cost to Boeing, which would have to compensate its supplier partners.

In addition, it would endanger the expected cash flow from the planned ramp-up to 10 jets per month by year end.

“Stopping the line and putting anything in the way of getting to 10 airplanes a month is the last thing they’d want to deal with,” Herbert said.

It makes sense for Boeing to pause deliveries but “keep the line going and build inventory,” he said.

If modifications eventually are required to all the airplanes already built, perhaps in swapping out the batteries or wiring, this clearly will be very expensive.

However, Herbert said, “the cost of shutting the line down and shutting the suppliers down is much greater than fixing those five airplanes that would roll out in a month.”

The FAA decided on the grounding after the second battery incident in eight days. After the ANA jet made its emergency landing, investigators inspected the forward electronics bay.

Dark residue

Hot chemicals had sprayed out of the battery, leaving a gooey dark residue and suggesting a different malfunction than the 787 battery fire at Logan airport in Boston last week, according to two people with knowledge of the situation.

The residue covered the battery and splattered over nearby instruments inside the bay. It left a 12-foot-long dark streak from the battery to an outflow valve through which some of the spray vented overboard during the flight.

The battery was not blackened and cracked open like the battery in the Japan Airlines 787 fire at the Boston airport, said those two people.

“It’s not as bad as the earlier incident,” one said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It looks like there wasn’t a fire. But there was a significant overheating.”

Two further sources confirmed there was no fire inside the airplane.

The residue may have been from smoke or from hot, vaporized electrolyte, the potentially flammable chemical inside the battery.

But even without a fire, “it’s still a problem” the electrolytes sprayed out of the battery box, said one person.

Four independent control circuits govern how the battery charges, ensuring that it neither overcharges nor discharges too much.

Boeing believes these circuits may have done their job as designed and stopped the overheating before a fire could start, two people said.

Boeing Senior Vice President Mike Sinnett, who is responsible for the plane’s electrical systems, said in an interview last week after the Logan fire that those controls — two inside the battery and two external — would prevent any serious battery incident.

He added that Boeing tests showed that any smoke from less serious battery overheating caused by some internal flaw would exit through the outflow valves overboard, ensuring none entered the passenger cabin or the cockpit in flight.

But the FAA, announcing its decision Wednesday to ground the 787 fleet, indicated that it was not satisfied these systems worked as designed.

“These conditions, if not corrected, could result in damage to critical systems and structures, and the potential for fire in the electrical compartment,” the FAA said.

Both battery incidents resulted in the “release of flammable electrolytes, heat damage, and smoke,” it said.

ANA said Wednesday the pilots did smell something they thought was smoke, and that this smell was also in the passenger cabin.

That, along with warnings of battery trouble on the instrument panel, is what impelled the pilot to make the emergency landing, deploy the emergency exit slides and evacuate all 137 passengers and crew.

Two people with knowledge of what happened said the pilot received three battery-warning messages during takeoff after an initial status message.

One of those messages warned that the battery was overheating.

FAA directive

Investigators from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the Japan Transport Safety Board are already working to establish the causes of the 787 battery malfunctions in Boston and Japan.

And the FAA said the safety review it announced last week will specifically look to “validate that 787 batteries and the battery system” meet the certification standards, which includes looking at quality control inside battery maker GS Yuasa of Japan and other system suppliers.

“The FAA will work with the manufacturer and carriers to develop a corrective action plan to allow the U.S. 787 fleet to resume operations as quickly and safely as possible.”

Aside from United and the two Japanese airlines, the only operators of the airplane at present are Air India, Qatar Airways, Ethiopian Airlines, LAN of Chile and LOT of Poland.

Boeing response

Boeing Chairman and CEO Jim McNerney issued a statement promising to work with the FAA.

“We are confident the 787 is safe and we stand behind its overall integrity,” he said. “We will be taking every necessary step in the coming days to assure our customers and the traveling public of the 787’s safety and to return the airplanes to service.”

Wednesday morning, Boeing Commercial Airplanes chief Ray Conner abruptly canceled most of a long-planned, daylong strategy meeting of his leadership executives and senior operational employees — some 900 people gathered at the Washington State Convention Center, including many top engineers.

Conner held just a short Q&A session with the employees, but the rest of the day’s agenda — including presentations to the crowd from out-of-town industry analysts and from Willie Walsh, chief executive of the holding company that owns British Airways and Spanish airline Iberia — was postponed until some unspecified later date.

Those who had flown in for the meeting left for home early as Conner gathered his team to confront the crisis in the 787 program.
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http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2020148677_787groundedxml.html
 
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As far as new flagships go, Airbus has certainly been doing their job better.
 
Garson007 said:
As far as new flagships go, Airbus has certainly been doing their job better.
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IIRC the A380 have not been with its problems ... though the engine failure I put squarely on Rolls Royce's shoulders. The little micro cracks in the wings I think was resolved and never posed a serious danger..unlike a battery that seems to spontanious combust.

The A350 XWB is close to starting test flights. The test unit is almost complete. I am excited for this plane. Some very exciting things happening in the commercial airliner world. Bombardier with their great little CSeries plane...the Russians getting serious about competing with the SuperJet 100 and the planned 130. Embraer going with the Pratt & Whitney PW1000G geared turbo fan engine on the new version of their Ejets. The airlines are being spoiled for choice.
 
OMG, like this hasn't happened with an aircraft before, and it won't happen again. You would swear that they were infested with snakes or something in the aircon turned everyone into walkers, geez.

Yes, I prefer Boeing, but am not denying that Airbus have put some interesting stuff out there. The A380 fascinates me, as ugly as sin, but a technological marvel as well.

I hope these is sorted out, so Boeing can keep going, and the media can find something else to over-sensationalize.

B
 
There have been rumours of problems, delays in development, scaling backs and cost cuts all through the design and construction of these planes.
Those are the kind of rumours I give heed to by not flying in one of these things for a few years, until they have ironed out all the quirks! ;)
 
Garyvdh said:
There have been rumours of problems, delays in development, scaling backs and cost cuts all through the design and construction of these planes.
Those are the kind of rumours I give heed to by not flying in one of these things for a few years, until they have ironed out all the quirks! ;)
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Aggg seems a little dramatic to me, how many plane crashes are there in a year roughly i wonder? More people die on our roads in a week than die flying in planes globally.

If you are that concerned why on earth do you get in your car where you are more likely to die? How many car companies have recalled millions of cars due to certain issues? Yet people get in the cars and happily drive around.
 
Boeing starts building a longer 787 model

Boeing announced Sunday it has started building its 787-9, a longer version of its 787 Dreamliner, looking to leave the jet's problems behind.

"The newest member of the 787 family began taking shape on schedule May 30 in Everett, Washington, when Boeing started joining large sections of the super-efficient jet," the aircraft giant said in a statement.

The 787-9 can carry 250 to 290 passengers -- 40 more than the 787-8, which started operating in September 2011 -- across an additional 300 nautical miles (555 kilometers) while using 20 percent less fuel than airplanes of the same size.

It should be making a first flight within months, and an initial delivery in early 2014 to Air New Zealand.

"From the start, the entire 787-9 team has focused relentlessly on execution so that we fulfill the commitments to our customers," said Mark Jenks, vice president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes' 787 program.

"Integrating the 787-9 into our production system on time is another clear sign that we are well-prepared and well-positioned for the work ahead."

Twenty customers around the world have ordered 355 787-9s, making up 40 percent of all 787 orders, the company said.

Boeing is keen to show clients that it can keep deliveries on schedule after the Dreamliner came into service more than three years late.

Regulators grounded the 787 after a battery fire on one aircraft parked at a US airport and a smouldering battery on another caused smoke and fumes, forcing an emergency landing.

In April, US officials cleared the plane to fly following alterations to its lithium-ion batteries.

The first Dreamliner resumed flights later that month and since then, more than half of all of the aircraft have been put back into service.

But Japan Airlines found a fault with a modified Dreamliner on Sunday, reports said, a day after it resumed full operation of the 787 fleet.


Source : Sapa-AFP /mjs
Date : 02 Jun 2013 23:25
 
The original version (I can't find any mockups of the longer version)....
Picture_boeing-787-dreamliner.jpg
 
There is speak of a evern bigger model...the -10x ...but it will be conflicting with the new 777X ... so not sure if it will actually happen.
 
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