Boeing Dreamliner Catches Fire In Boston

19061969 writes "The BBC reports that a Boeing 787 Dreamliner caught fire in Boston. Carter Leake, an analyst at BB&T Capital Markets in Virginia, said, 'I don't want to be an alarmist, but onboard fires on airplanes are as bad as it gets.' This represents bad news for Boeing especially after the FAA identified errors in the assembly of fuel line couplings in the Dreamliner."

Comments

Lithium ion battery

[Dan East]

It was one of the two large lithium ion battery packs the power the plane when the engines are off. The FCC and pilots were already concerned about the use of lithium ion batteries for this purpose (apparently it's a first), and they issued special regulations just for this plane.

Also the only person on board when this happened was a mechanic (which is probably a good thing at least someone was able to spot the smoke right away).

Re:MSM Strikes Again

[Dupple]

From TFA

"The fire started after a battery in the jet's auxiliary power system overheated."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20942484

Re:Titanic

[bigdanmoody]

Indeed, as a former aircraft mechanic, I know that all of the planes that I've worked on have taken fire safety very seriously. The Dash-8's that I've worked on have their batteries placed outside of the pressure vessel. Although I have not personally worked on a plane that uses Li-Ion batteries like the 787 does, my understanding is that aircraft that do use these batteries have numerous warning and safety features to prevent thermal runaway, which sounds like what happened here. Based on the very limited information in TFA, I hypothesize that if the flight crew had been on board, they would have noticed a battery overheat condition and could have taken appropriate action well before a fire broke out.

Another One Today

[MichaelJ]

Another Dreamliner just got a fuel leak and dumped a good mess all over a taxiway at Logan until the engine was shut down. Not a good week for 787s in Boston.