Two Japanese airlines ground their 787 Fleets

The continuing saga of the Boeing 787 rolls on.

All Nippon Airways has grounded all 17 of its Boeing 787 planes after an emergency landing early Wednesday, Bloomberg reports.

There seems to have been a lot of problems with this aircraft recently, and it makes me wonder if I will consider not getting on a 787 in future. (as in, never fly on a 787....)

Details here

More here

Originally posted by dampnickers
The continuing saga of the Boeing 787 rolls on.

All Nippon Airways has grounded all 17 of its Boeing 787 planes after an emergency landing early Wednesday, Bloomberg reports.

There seems to have been a lot of problems with this aircraft recently, and it makes me wonder if I will consider not getting on a 787 in future.

Details here

More here

was there ever a chance you were going to buy a 787?
is this something you were saving up for? about to buy?

did you have a purchase in escrow?

Originally posted by okamitengu

Originally posted by dampnickers
The continuing saga of the Boeing 787 rolls on.

All Nippon Airways has grounded all 17 of its Boeing 787 planes after an emergency landing early Wednesday, Bloomberg reports.

There seems to have been a lot of problems with this aircraft recently, and it makes me wonder if I will consider not getting on a 787 in future.

Details here

More here

was there ever a chance you were going to buy a 787?
is this something you were saving up for? about to buy?

did you have a purchase in escrow?

The OP said "consider not getting on a 787 in future" nothing about purchasing one.

Oddly enough, the OP did read the same way for me lol. I was like "damn, plans to buy a 787. Maybe I should get to know this person".

reply to post by retirednature


Now, when I have made the purchase of my very own 787, I'll post details here. When I do, message me and remind me I promised you both flights to wherever you want to go!

When I have purchased one of course.

Originally posted by dampnickers
reply to post by retirednature

 

Now, when I have made the purchase of my very own 787, I'll post details here. When I do, message me and remind me I promised you both flights to wherever you want to go!

When I have purchased one of course.

THIS GUY ^^

reply to post by dampnickers


I'd hop on a Dreamliner right now if I could. I have absolutely no fears about the aircraft. As Boeing has said, these are normal teething problems, all caused by human error in assembly.

The aircraft currently has a dispatch rate similar to what the 777 had when it first entered service, and that is now one of the most successful, safest planes flying (only one hard landing when they suffered a power rollback on landing after part of the fuel system iced). It has a higher dispatch rate than some other aircraft that Boeing introduced prior to the Triple-7.

With the Dreamliner, they have found at least three control boards in the aft power compartment that were part of a batch of 16 that were bad. Two were on the United aircraft that had problems, the third on the Qatar bird that had problems. The problem then becomes, do you send out an AD based on three bad boards, out of over 50 aircraft in service, and 200,000 testing hours with no problems? Or do you gamble that the other 13 in the batch are going to be ok? They gambled, and while they may not have won, they certainly didn't lose either, as it appears to date that the other boards have been ok (although it's possible that the ANA flight has one of the other 13).

They have also found where at least one (possibly two or more) wiring harnesses were assembled incorrectly, which led to electrical problems, and may have contributed to the JAL fire. The lithium ion battery system was tested for about 100,000 hours without a single failure like what happened with the JAL flight. They had cell failures, and the battery overheated, but not once did it catch fire, or even start to appear to catch fire.

The fuel leaks have been caused by improperly assembled connectors in the fuel lines. From the video, it appears that the first fuel leak the JAL flight had, the day after the fire, was from the vents used to dump fuel. I've seen that happen plenty of times over the years. We even had an F-15 that would run on the ground for over an hour, and not vent a drop, but as soon as it tried to refuel in flight, it would leak fuel like a sieve out the vent and have to return after declaring an emergency. Happened three times before they figured out the external fuel tank was bad. There could be anything from a one off overpressure causing it to vent, to debris in the system causing it (I've seen that too, it's amazing what sticks and leaves can do). The bigger problem is the fittings leaking, which appears to be what leaked when that aircraft reached Japan.

The point is that this aircraft is more advanced than anything else flying, and is more tested than any other aircraft ever built. They may find some things to change, like the Li batteries, but when you only have 50 or so aircraft flying, and the problems start to occur it seems like the sky is falling when it isn't.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by dampnickers

 

I'd hop on a Dreamliner right now if I could. I have absolutely no fears about the aircraft. As Boeing has said, these are normal teething problems, all caused by human error in assembly.

while teething problems ARE normal, not all teething problems are equal -

"This is the worst new aircraft development program Boeing has experienced, when you look back at these troubles and all the delays," said Richard Aboulafia, an aviation consultant with Teal Group in Fairfax, Virginia.

- quoted in Washinton Post

And now news that the FAA has grounded the US fleet.

I am sure the 787 will mature into a great airliner.

But I'll wait util it DOES mature before prefering it to anything else thanks

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


No, they're not all equal, but when you're talking about the revolutionary design of the Dreamliner, combined with stupid human mistakes that have plagued the development you're going to see some issues. Some serious ones. I'm not surprised that they're seeing problems with the Li batteries, the question is what was the liquid that spilled on the ANA battery. Did it come from the battery itself, or from somewhere else? And what caused the JAL battery to go up?

The relatively easy fix would be to replace the batteries with something else, but nothing else will charge as fast, or carry as much charge as an Li battery, but nothing else is really as dangerous as they can occasionally be.

My bet is that they will be flying again soon however, as United has said the problems with at least one of their aircraft was a wiring mistake, and it was pretty easily remedied. As they say in the article, the airlines will have to move fast to figure out if it's a wiring problem, a battery problem, or something else. My bet is most of the problems will be bad wiring.

Lithium Ion technology is used where high energy density is preferred but it requires a somewhat risky charging system and fires are fairly common. Japan seems to really be jumping on GS Yuasa about that latest issue. With proper redundancy and batteries located in non critical areas you would think the Boeing engineers could design a safe Lipo system.

Of course we really shouldn't be trying to weigh in on aviation engineering issues considering most of us couldn't upgrade our UPS to NIMH!

reply to post by Cauliflower


They actually tested the battery system for somewhere around 100,000 hours without any problems. That's why I'm betting this is being caused by someone miswiring the power control unit. The FAA required extensive safety systems, and even more extensive testing before they would certify them, and Boeing complied with everything, and the battery system passed with flying colors. They said they saw an occasional cell overheat, but the safety systems protected the system and they never saw one catch fire.

reply to post by Zaphod58


So far they have been lucky. As you have rightly said, it might be down to "human error", but human error that leads to loss of life, is still loss of life.

I am not comfortable with the idea that an "overheating issue" was detected, but it was still passed. Regardless of any issues, it should not have been passed, until there was no way of the system overheating.

It is right to speculate that this could be caused by a myriad of individual problems/faults/issues/etc. But it is not right that the planes were allowed to fly when there was a danger of any sort of overheating.

Overheating is a clear indication of the possibility of a fire - very clear - I work with electronics. I wouldn't have certified the plane for flight until the issue was fixed.

reply to post by dampnickers


A single cell overheating though generally won't start a fire as long as there are safety measures involved. Boeing built those safety measures in for a single cell overheat. The JAL fire was apparently more than one cell, or an actual short in the panel.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Indeed - I have ben talking with some of the people in a regulatory agency that covers 10 on order for a particualr airline.

They are not concerned per se - the FAA & Boeing will solve this - but they noted that there's a reason why Lithium batteries are not allwoed to be carried as checked baggage - if they catch fire it is more important to be able to access them to fight the fire!!

the aircraft is "all electric", and problems with the main battery - whther it be the battery or any iof its control systems - are considered fundamental to the safety of operation.

The wording of the FAA Airworthiness Directive grounding the airliners is quite amazing for those of us used to dealing withy AD's:

(g) Modification or Other Action
Before further flight, modify the battery system, or take other actions, in accordance with a
method approved by the Manager, Seattle Aircraft Certification Office (ACO), FAA.

-FAA AD site

Delivery dates have already slipped a few months for aircraft due in 2014 because the expected delivery rate of 10/month has not been achieved as quickly as promised. Any redesign to carry other battery types will cause further slippage in deliveries as the Li batteries take up much less space than "industry standard" NiCad ones.

The ANA aircraft suffered an overcharge of the battery, before the IFE and landing. This led to it overheating, and venting electrolytes out of the vent hole, which led to the battery warnings, and smoke in the cockpit.

www.flightglobal.com...