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Japan Grounds Fleet of Boeing 787s After Emergency Landing

Posted by Unknown on from the no-fly-list dept.

hcs_$reboot writes "The Boeing 787 Dreamliner has already occupied some of Slashdot news space recently: FAA to investigate the 787 (Jan 11) or 787 catches fire in Boston (Jan 08). Today (Jan 16 JST) another incident happened that led to Japan grounding its entire 787 fleet until an internal investigation gives more information about the problem. A 787 from ANA had a battery problem and smoke was detected in the electronics. The plane had to make an emergency landing and passengers were evacuated. "

9 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. Has anybody said by Joce640k · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Dreamliner, Screamliner..."

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    No sig today...
    1. Re:Has anybody said by kelemvor4 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Actually, the American way is to say that safety concerns are not an issue when I can't imagine they didn't know they are

      No, the American way is to say that the market will find an optimal solution, and if customers want safe airlines, they're free to purchase from another carrier.

      You know, the whole laissez-faire capitalism thing.

      If we implement safety features on the more expensive airliners, the safety features will eventually trickle down to the less expensive ones.

  2. Re:This can't be true by icebike · · Score: 5, Informative

    Second Li-Poly battery total meltdown in as many weeks.

    Boeing had to get the FAA to waive its rules regarding Lithium batteries on planes in order to get this plane certified in the first place, and build containment boxes for the batteries into the design.

    For the most part the risk of Lithium batteries lies in the requirement for rigid control of recharging, being careful not to over charge and also of draining the battery completely, the annoying habit of catching fire when the rules are not followed, or when the battery is short-circuited make large Li batteries (8-gram equivalent lithium content or more) banned in luggage, and shipments.

    I suspect that the FAA will rescind this waiver, and force the replacement of the battery packs with something less prone to burn..

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    Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
  3. I survived. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I flew the 787 from Haneda to Frankfurt two weeks ago, and am happy to report the flight was excellent and as far as I can tell I wasn't killed in a fire.

    1. Re:I survived. by TheNinjaroach · · Score: 5, Funny

      Have any creepy new nine year olds in your life lately?

      --
      I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
  4. Re:This can't be true by Rakishi · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is why pilots don't fuck around with fire warnings:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ValuJet_Flight_592
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Canada_Flight_797
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_120
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudia_Flight_163
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Airways_Flight_295
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_991
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPS_Airlines_Flight_6

  5. Evacuating Passengers by holophrastic · · Score: 5, Funny

    I know the TSA has been doing cavity searches for a long time. But exacuating passengers seems both extreme, and dirty. Shouldn't the world health organization have something to say about this?

    Maybe next time there's an emergency landing, they should consider evacuating the plane, instead of the passengers. Besides, if it's a rough landing, some of the passengers are likely to self-evacuate.

  6. We need WiFi in those planes ASAP by sshir · · Score: 5, Funny

    With internet connection it is much more handy to short Boeing stock on the first whiff of smoke.

  7. Engineering has been suplanted by cost accountants by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I had worked as an engineer for approximately 30 years. What I have witnessed has disturbed me.

    In the last 10 to 15 years, design decisions that used to be made by engineers have been replaced by cost accountants restricting most decisions of a technical nature and replacing it with "most cost effective solution".

    I did some consulting for a small aero engines company about 15 years ago that had a brilliant concept dreamed up by a non-technical MBA executive to start building aero engines for small aircraft based on race car engines. Reasoning for that is because they are high performance engines. Well d'ohhh that is not what you want in an aero engine, you want reliability & safety as the most important factors. Race car engines need to be rebuilt after every race. Not a desirable attribute for an aero engine.

    Needless to say extensive testing which I was involved with proved that this idea was half baked and it failed. Problem was executive management freaked and were cursing the engineers for destroying their "brilliant idea" and acted in a savage manner to the staff by trashing many of them.

    In many aerospace companies, I have had been involved with have pushed out most experienced staff in favour of young and cheap staff. If I was to guess, I suspect Boeing has done the same thing. I have heard from many experienced colleagues that old technical problems that were resolved decades ago in the aerospace industry are re-emerging due to in-experienced staff and loss of knowledge.

    This shift I suspect contributes in part to many of the issues being experienced in the Dreamliner.

    my two cents