Boeing halting 787 deliveries as batteries investigated
Boeing said Friday that while it will continue production of its troubled 787 Dreamliner, it is temporarily halting deliveries of the nextgeneration jets until problems with the batteries are addressed. A Pennsylvania congressman asked Argonne National Laboratory to reach out to Boeing and U.S. regulators to assist in solving the battery issues.
Meanwhile, a common cause may be emerging in the battery problems that prompted U.S. regulators and others around the globe to ground the planes this week.
Given the grounding, Boeing’s move halting deliveries was not unexpected. It was unlikely airlines who’ve ordered the jet would accept delivery until the problems are resolved because it would have meant keeping the planes parked.
An All Nippon Airways plane made an emergency landing Wednesday morning in western Japan after its pilots smelled something burning and received a cockpit warning of battery problems, which led to the grounding of the planes.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday required U.S. carriers to stop flying 787s until the batteries are demonstrated to be safe. Other countries, including Japan, also grounded nearly all 50 of the 787s in use around the world.
Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.), co-chair of the House Science and National Labs Caucus, sent a letter to Lemontbased Argonne Director Eric Isaacs Friday asking that Argonne personnel “lend their expertise to Boeing as the company works with the FAA.”
Argonne was named a national center for battery research by the Energy Department last year.
Asked to comment on the request, Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel said, “Boeing committed to supporting the FAA and working around the clock to finding answers as quickly as possible. In addition, we are supporting the investigations that will determine the cause of the recent incidents involving 787 batteries.”
Boeing has not contacted Argonne, Isaacs said in a statement.
The 787 is the first Boeing plane to use rechargeable lithium-ion batteries for its main electrical system. The burned insides of a lithium ion battery in the All Nippon Airways Boeing 787 at the center of the grounding indicate the battery operated at a voltage above its design limit, a Japanese investigator said Friday, as U.S. officials joined Japan’s probe into the incident.
Photos provided by the Japan Transport Safety Board of the lithium ion battery that was located beneath the cockpit of the ANA 787 show a blackened mass of wires and other components within a distorted blue casing.
Japan transport ministry investigator Hideyo Kosugi said the state of the battery indicated “voltage exceeding the design limit was applied” to it.
“It sounds like they are getting closer to figuring out the problem, but I’m not sure what it means about the solution,” Chicago-based Morningstar Inc aerospace and defense analyst Neal Dihora said.
“Why did these two batteries operate above the design? Why not the others? Is it an airline operator issue or battery manufacturer issue or something else?”
Those are among questions that remain to be answered, he said.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Friday the jet will not fly again until authorities are “1,000 percent sure” it is safe, Reuters reported, adding LaHood said he could not predict when the 787 would be authorized to resume flights.