787 Dreamliner On Fire Again

Antipater writes "It looks like there's more trouble afoot for Boeing's 787 Dreamliner: London's Heathrow Airport was shut down for over an hour as fire crews attended to a 'suspected fire' on a Dreamliner owned by Ethiopia Airlines. 'Aerial pictures of the scene on the U.K.'s Sky News showed the new plane — which was not carrying passengers at the time — had been sprayed by foam, but there were no signs of fire. The aircraft was not blocking either runway, but with all the airport's fire crews tackling the Boeing 787 incident, authorities were forced to suspend departures and arrivals because of safety rules.'"

Comments

there were no signs of fire ... wrong

[BemoanAndMoan]

Sky News showed the new plane — which was not carrying passengers at the time — had been sprayed by foam, but there were no signs of fire.

But there is! Scorch marks on the roof in front of the tail section.

Check it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23295115 [bbc video feed]

Re:Obviously caused by Ethiopian cultural attitude

[ShanghaiBill]

towards fire. Don't put that out! It contains the soul of the fire god. Our tribal elders forbid it.

Ethiopia has been a Christian nation since the 1st century A.D. That was several centuries before Europeans stopped worshiping their "fire gods", like Vulcan, Surtr, and Thor.

Re:Airbus CEO was on hand for a comment

[sabri]

"Well, I was pretty sure I smelled smoke!"

You may have smelled smoke, but the headline is not necessarily true.

The Li-Ion batteries that have caused the Dreamliner so much trouble are in the lower front part of the plane, below the front doors.

The news pictures show a problem on the upper side near the tail section. If there was a fire, it could have been anything, an isolated incident not connected to the battery issue.

Re:Obviously caused by Ethiopian cultural attitude

[PRMan]

They trace their Christian heritage to the Ethopian that rode in his chariot while Philip in the Bible: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%208:26-40

Re:One system to rule them all...

[sjames]

Actually it's a good design. They could have remained open and at full capacity during this incident BUT since the fire crews and equipment were busy, their policy is to shut down to avoid the risk of a second incident and no way to respond to it.

Since fires and other rescue situations aren't terribly common, the fire crew is just standing by most of the time. Having 1 crew standing by most of the time and another nearly all of the time wouldn't be very practical.

Re:Airbus CEO was on hand for a comment

[Anonymous Coward]

http://media.mcclatchydc.com/smedia/2013/01/17/00/23/XsZ5c.La.91.jpg

Embraer is smaller

[FatLittleMonkey]

The smallest 787 configuration carries 210 passengers. The largest stretched Embraer carries just 120. Different league entirely. Embraer is competing with the 717/A318 and similar small commuter jets, not the 787/A380 and similar wide bodied jumbos.