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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."
The dreamliner turns into a nightmare. Film at 11.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
No idea how the fire started. No clue if it's a design issue or maintenance error. Scare quote from someone who's not in the airline industry. Check, check, and check.
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).
Better known as 318230.
| "onboard fires on airplanes are as bad as it gets"
Hmm... I'm sure a missing wing, or rapid loss of pressure due to a collision, or massive power failure, or lots of other things could be a lot worse than a battery fire.
Am I correct in assuming TFA doesn't know what on earth (or off it) they're on about?
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Yeah I'd say, "The airline said that no passengers or crew members were hurt as they had already disembarked." puts the kibosh on "as bad as it gets [on airplanes]".
Citing a thing like "FAA identified errors in the assembly of fuel line couplings in the Dreamliner." when the actual fire, according to this morning's Boston Globe, was "[a] Small electrical fire..."
The article continues with "...no indication of smoke...", "...cleaners ...smelled smoke, notifying a mechanic...", and "...mechanic ... traced the smoke to a unit that powers the plain when it is on the ground with the engines off, but was unable to extinguish it."
Make it serious square. From what we have been told until here, at least. ..." is mistaken. If a plane can experience its batteries overheating beyond the temperature that incenses wild fire, without shutting the batteries off beforehand (no temperature control??), and when almost not in service (passengers and crew disembarked), it not airworthy at all.
First factor, fire is the last thing you want on a plane. Over.
Second factor, fire without clear-cut reason is what you don't want.
The commentator who seemingly played the matter down "The only person on board
In this sense webmistressrachel's comment is uncalled for. Losing a wing or pressure due to a collision is in a sense 'more normal'. Because the reason is clear-cut. But a fire out of the blue is simply a 'must not, ever'.
Actually, they are as bad as it gets. Wing off, you die. Cabin fire, you suffer while knowing you're going to die. There is a distinct difference. Listened to the tapes; they still haunt me.
Well, wait, how big of a fire are we talking here? If you go by the saying "where there's smoke there's fire," then I'd much rather have a guy sparking up in the bathroom (which people used to be able to do without hiding in the bathroom) over the plane FUCKING CRASHING INTO THE GROUND.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Wing off..... you plummet towards the ground and die.
Fire?
Uhoh we are on fire, where can we land?
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
Yeah, wing off, you watch the ground rise to meet you and you die.
Not sure which waiting period is worse. At least with a missing wing, you hope Sully is in the right seat and can figure out how to land on one wing. Fire is very hard to escape from on a plan, if it manages to find any occupied compartments. I suppose you could try climing, popping the oxygen masks, starve the fire, and hope the emergency oxygen system doesn;t catch fire. And other problems.
Given my druthers, I guess snakes may actually be the second-least problematic next to crying babies. Or being between an air marshal and a grandmother^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H terrorist.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Sorry sir, you ARE an idiot.
An on-board fire in a location that is hard to reach or a fire that is hard to extinguish is one of the WORST things that can happen to an airplane. Yes, it is even worse than a massive power failure or rapid loss of pressure.
There have been several grave incidents due to fire, maybe you Google a bit: Flight 111, Flight 295, Flight 592 and Flight 797 come to mind.
Bottom line: Once a fire gets out of control or causes too much smoke, you're essentially doomed once you're in the air. So, a battery catching fire IS a big deal and as bad as it can get.
you could open a window
| "onboard fires on airplanes are as bad as it gets"
Hmm... I'm sure a missing wing, or rapid loss of pressure due to a collision, or massive power failure, or lots of other things could be a lot worse than a battery fire.
Am I correct in assuming TFA doesn't know what on earth (or off it) they're on about?
No, you are not correct, you are either over-estimating your expertise or over-estimating the importance of being pedantic.
En-route cabin or hold fires fall into the category of events that will almost certainly be fatal to everyone on board. With a slight application of analytical thinking, it is possible to see that a fire on the ground immediately raises the question of whether this could occur in flight.
Dear passengers: I have bad and good news for you. The bad news: we lost a wing. The good news: it was on fire anyway.
"I don't want to be an alarmist, but we're all gonna die." Ok... Got it.
This happened on the ground when plane was empty of people.
1st off, it's Madame, not sir.
2nd off, every plane with two wings that lost a wing crashed. Not every plane that ever had a fire on it crashed. Go figure.
What's with the attacks too, who's an idiot now?
Simple logic puts your links to shame.
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Also, an onboard fire while airborn is very bad but an onboard fire on an empty plain on the tarmac is not really so bad. Inconvenient and expensive, sure, but nobody will likely die from it.
The next release will fix some of the most obvious bugs.
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
Were they on it like fans, players, etc.? :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I wonder why they don't just put parachutes on a plane. In a catastrophic emergency going down on a parachute is much better than crashing into the ground. Even if some people break a leg, it's better than dying. Perhaps the space/weight trade off is too much for something that will almost never be used.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Stop, you're both wrong.
1. This is not, by definition, an aviation accident: even the crew had deplaned.
2. Many parked aircraft have lost wings without crashing: all it takes is wind passing over the tarmac on the wrong vector.
3. A fire, even in flight, doesn't have to be the end of the world if the systems design detects the fire and limits its ability to spread. This was the principal lesson-learned from SR111, which has since changed material approvals for aircraft. SA295 was never adequately explained, so teaches us little, but evidently the firefighting routines were not followed. VJ592 was caused by illegally carried hazmat (oxygen generators) in the cabin. AC797 had many similarities to SR111 (insulation burning spread the fire), but the lessons learned were not applied to designs in time to prevent SR111. I'd blame the FAA's inaction on NTSB recommendations.
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
...I ain't goi... oh wait
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.
Orphan Girl Scouts. Gotta have the orphans in there.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
An Israeli Air Force F-15 lost almost all of one wing in a midair and was able to land. You can find video, it's insane.
Not exactly on point, many warplanes have lost big parts of wings and landed. Flying buses aren't in the same league.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Not the whole plane - you make the passenger compartment detachable and capable of parachute descent. It's been designed, shown to be workable, and calculated to be too expensive.
If there were lower barriers to entry, an airline might be started that had these kinds of planes and people who wanted to pay a premium for that kind of technology could choose to do so. There are many cheap bastards in the world, but many people will pay more to cover their fears, so it might work out.
My God, it's Full of Source!
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I remember when an engine fell off a DC-10 departing from O'Hare and the aircraft crashed killing everyone aboard.. Does that count as worse?
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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.
Michael J.
Root, God, what is difference?
i seem to recall it actually being the case of 99.99% of passengers having no idea what to do with parachutes. they would probably be more likely to plop on the ground, just with a backpack attached
Rich
And if the fire had started 20 minutes earlier?
I'd say it looks like luck that people had disembarked prior to the fire.
Also, an onboard fire while airborn is very bad ....
I'm sure you mean "airbourne", but I had a friend who was actually airborn. Her mother went into labour above Shannon airport, and she was named after the airport. I guess she's thankful that the plane wasn't circling Gatwick, or Heathrow.
OK it's offtopic - but you have to admit it's interesting...
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
Which is to say: Its all been subcontracted out.
Thales is responsible for the electrical system. GS Yuasa makes the batteries. There's probably no one left at Boeing Commercial Aircraft that has a handle on what's going on beyond contract management.
Have gnu, will travel.
that in order to fix this problem, don't go to Boston~
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Thank you, it was a little tongue-in-cheek but having read the following dicussion it's surprisingly on-target.
To summarise
a) Every plane (except those which have significant body lift - not the "flying buses" as one low UID put it) which loses a wing crashes, there and then, with little choice of where.
b) Fires can be put out. Planes can land with a fire on board.
c) The regulations dictate that the batteries should fail-safe, that is, should they overheat they would be placed outside the pressure capsule.
I learned all that thanks to my tongue-in-cheek comment, and so did everyone who read the thread. The negative comments are worth it :-)
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I included a second line/HTML para in my post. Perhaps you could have read it before stampeding to the 'Reply to This' link?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I'll take the 0.01% when the alternative is certain death in a metallic fireball.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Sure, with the way they are designed currently, but I'm pretty sure that they could design a parachute that would get 50% of the people to the ground with only minor injuries (some broken bones and scrapes). which may not sound that great, but it's better than dying.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
That's already been pointed out by others as a very bad counter-example. The body provides about a third of the lift on the types of aircraft. We were talking about flying buses, not rocket jets.
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Sure, with the way they are designed currently, but I'm pretty sure that they could design a parachute that would get 50% of the people to the ground with only minor injuries (some broken bones and scrapes). which may not sound that great, but it's better than dying.
Hindenburg survival rate was 64% - maybe we should be going back to Zeppelins filled with Hydrogen again.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Then that would be worse, so this can not possibly be 'as bad as it gets' since you've already pointed out a situation thats worse.
Dead is worse than not dead.
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