Kyodo News, via Reuters
The 787 that made an emergency landing in Japan on Wednesday. All 137 passengers and crew members were evacuated safely.
Regulators around the globe ordered the grounding of Boeing 787s on Thursday until they could determine what caused a new type of battery to catch fire on two planes in recent days.
The directives in Europe, India and Japan followed an order Wednesday by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration grounding the planes operated by U.S. carriers.
The decisions are a result of incidents involving a plane that was parked in Boston and one in Japan that had to make an emergency landing Wednesday morning after an alarm warning of smoke in the cockpit.
In Japan on Thursday, the transportation ministry issued a formal order to ground all 787s indefinitely, until concerns over the aircraft’s battery systems are resolved. All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines had already voluntarily grounded their 787s on Wednesday.
European safety regulators also said they would ground Dreamliners, affecting LOT of Poland, the only carrier that operates the jets in that region. In India, the aviation regulator grounded all six of the 787s operated by the state-owned carrier Air India.
LAN Airlines of Chile said it was following suit, acting in coordination with the Chilean Aeronautical Authority.
The F.A.A.’s emergency directive, issued Wednesday night, initially applies to United Airlines, the only American carrier using the new plane so far, with six 787s.
Boeing, based in Chicago, has a lot riding on the 787, and its stock dropped nearly 3.4 percent Wednesday to $74.34. The company has outlined ambitious plans to double its production rate to 10 planes a month by the end of 2013. It is also starting to build a stretch version and considering an even larger one after that.
“We are confident the 787 is safe and we stand behind its overall integrity,” Jim McNerney, Boeing’s chief executive, said in a statement.
The grounding — an unusual action for a new plane — focuses on one of the more risky design choices made by Boeing, namely to make extensive use of lithium-ion batteries aboard its airplanes for the first time.
Until now, much of the attention on the 787 was focused on its lighter composite materials and more efficient engines, meant to usher in a new era of more fuel-efficient travel, particularly over long distances. The batteries are part of an electrical system that replaces many mechanical and hydraulic ones that are common in previous jets.
The 787’s problems could jeopardize one of its major features, its ability to fly long distances at a lower cost. The plane is certified to fly 180 minutes from an airport. The U.S. government is unlikely to extend that to 330 minutes, as Boeing has promised, until all problems with the plane have been resolved.
For Boeing, “it’s crucial to get it right,” said Richard L. Aboulafia, an aviation analyst at Teal Group in Fairfax, Virginia. “They’ve got a brief and closing window in which they can convince the public and their flying customers that this is not a problem child.”
The 787 uses two identical lithium-ion batteries, each about one and a half to two times the size of a typical car battery. One battery, in the rear electrical equipment bay near the wings, is used to start the auxiliary power unit, a small engine in the tail that is used most often to provide power for the plane while it is on the ground. The other battery, called the main battery, starts the pilot’s computer displays and serves as a backup for flight systems.
The maker of the 787’s batteries, GS Yuasa of Japan, has declined to comment on the problems.
Boeing has defended the novel use of the batteries and said it had put in place a series of systems meant to prevent overcharging and overheating.
In a conference call last week with reporters, Boeing’s chief engineer for the 787, Mike Sinnett, said that the company had long been aware of possible problems with lithium-ion batteries but that it had built in numerous redundant features to keep any problems with the batteries from threatening the plane in flight. He said that the batteries had not had any problems in 1.3 million hours of flight and that Boeing was trying to understand what had caused the problems.
Regulators Around the Globe Ground Boeing 787s
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Regulators Around the Globe Ground Boeing 787s
