
US FAA Grounds Boeing 787 Over Battery Concerns - jordanbaucke
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100385850
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akg_67
I have traveled few times on ANA's 787 between Narita/Tokyo and Seattle. While
sitting in emergency exit row at window seat, I could feel that the floor in
front of the seat was unusually hot. After seeing location of the fire in
pictures of JAL's 787, I get the impression that the emergency exit row seat
was just above the cargo bay where fire originated. I am glad that ANA 787 I
was on didn't catch fire.

I am glad to finally see FAA making a decision to ground 787. I hope 787 don't
fly until these issues are resolved.

~~~
jrockway
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair_Flight_111>

~~~
rorrr
In-flight fires cause many many crashes.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Canada_Flight_797>

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airtours_Flight_28M>

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ValuJet_Flight_592>

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Airways_Flight_2...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Airways_Flight_295)

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudia_Flight_163>

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robomartin
OK, from the horse's mouth:

[http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId...](http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=14233)

And here's a good document dealing with Lithium-Ion battery hazards:

[http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/pdf/research/rflithiumionba...](http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/pdf/research/rflithiumionbatterieshazard.pdf)

I have a lot of experience with Lithium Polymer batteries as I fly eletric-
powered radio-controlled helicopters and planes that use them. There are
always reports of LiPo (as they are commonly known) packs puffing-up and
sometimes catching on fire and even exploding (more like the popping of a pop-
corn bag except that you have flames shooting out of it). I have personally
exploded a small 3S (three cells in series) pack just to see the mechanism and
the magnitude of the effect. I have to say that it took a LOT of work to
explode the pack. I over-charged it to a ridiculous degree.

Now, of course, there are also reports of packs catching on fire for no
apparent reason at all. There are many explanations out there. The best I came
across was from a PhD Chemist who explained it something like this
(paraphrasing, of course): When these batteries are assembled there's moisture
in the surrounding environment. And, while moisture is kept in check, some of
it stays in the pack. They can't run a super-dry environment because it could
be very dangerous. One of the electrodes is lithium-oxide infused in carbon.
Lithium reacts with water, which gives you hydrogen. Carbon reacts with
hydrogen to give you methane. As methane is generated the cell puff-up. If
thermal runaway is triggered through other mechanisms and the methane ignites:
kaboom!

I keep about thirty LiPo packs in strong locked and vented steel container
(heavy toolbox) in the garage away from flammable materials and flame sources.
When we go to the flying field the same container is used to transport to the
field. While at the field the container is always locked and, if possible,
removed from the car. I have never had an incident I did not cause.

As far as the Boeing issues. Hard to say from the outside. It could boil down
to quality issues at their battery supplier. It is probably impossible to
perform a full inspection on these kinds of batteries on delivery. How do you
determine if there's too much moisture inside a sealed package?

~~~
refurb
I think your PhD chemist needs to rethink his theory.

Lithium oxide is not the same as lithium metal. Lithium metal reactions with
water to create hydrogen and heat, but lithium oxide is a salt. It generates
no hydrogen when it contacts water, but it might generate some heat.

Carbon will react with hydrogen to give you methane, but not with the
conditions inside the battery. You need a ton of pressure, heat and some
catalyst to do that.

After reading the wikipedia article, apparently the cathode can actually
produce oxygen which may explain the bursting of the cells.

~~~
robomartin
Well, let's blame me for not recalling the details of the conversation. I'm
sure what he said was correct, which probably isn't exactly what I posted.

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minimax
They are shooting for a 330 minute ETOPS for the 787. That means a plane can
be up to 6.5 hours from the closest airport on long haul flights. ETOPS has
more to do with engine reliability than fire safety, but I can't help wonder
if this will affect things.

Incidentally, I flew on two United 787s in December and I thought they were
fantastic planes. The electrochromic windows were a real treat.

~~~
kgermino
5.5 hours? Or is there an extra hour there above the ETOPS rating?

~~~
minimax
Woops you're right. Math failure on my part.

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qnk
Will this affect non-US airlines that flight to the U.S.? A 787 from a Polish
airline (LOT) is about to land in Chicago. Will it be allowed to fly back to
Poland with passengers on board?

<http://fr24.com/LOT3>

~~~
eduardordm
Right now, it will affect all flights, including those not flying to/from the
US.

Only countries that are not members of the ICAO can still fly 787s after
receiving the notification. (Congo?)

ICAO defines the rules and countries can change/add some parts of it using
amendments (PANS). But those about safety/certifications cannot be changed.

When a plane is certified in a country, its local safety board is responsible
for its safety certifications, decisions made by this safety board are
reflected to all countries.

So, in fact, NTSB has jurisdictions over boeing certifications worldwide. If a
boeing airplane crashes in brazil, NTSB will also participate in the
investigation. If an Airbus crashes in the US, french authorities will also be
envolved.

EDIT: (as noted by binarycrusader)

This seems to be a immediate service bulletin. So, the planes can still fly,
they just need to be serviced before the next flight.

~~~
avar
So can any national safety body of any member country of the ICAO ground an
airplane model worldwide? Or can the U.S. do so in this case because Boeing is
a U.S. company? What's the process a national agency goes through to ground an
aircraft worldwide?

~~~
eduardordm
Only the country that emitted the certifications can cancel them. (models, not
individual aircrafts).

Examples of certifications DO-254 and DO-178, those are required for building
avionics and general software.

Link: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DO-178B>

Cool stuff. When I quit flying I thought about building software for aviation.
Didn't work out.

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rit
Just a random piece of pedantry; the article states that Poland's LOT is the
only european airline operating the 787 right now.

I was at Heathrow maybe 90 days ago and British Airways had a brand new 787
(Painted in fancy "Dreamliner" dress and BA logo) parked at a gate as if it
was in use. Might be that they were still demoing it/showing it off
deliberately but I had the impression it was an active aircraft.

~~~
yardie
The crew haven't been trained on it yet so I don't think it was in service.

If anything it was probably a meet and greet where the executives (and staff)
can walk around the cabin to get a feel for it. They run their entire
operation out of T5 now so getting a an unused gate for a 787 wouldn't be
impossible. Other airlines are still jockeying for gate space at T1-T4.

~~~
rit
And it _was_ Terminal 5, so that makes sense. It looks like they're not
getting their 787s (and an order of 'superjumbo' A380s) until this year.

A training/demo aircraft makes sense. Not to mention free advertising people
like me, sitting in a window seat, seeing that beautiful new aircraft with
"DREAMLINER" painted across her body.

Granted, BA is the only Airline besides Virgin Atlantic/America where I have
felt like I was treated like a human being... so convincing me to fly on them
isn't _that_ difficult.

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mootothemax
There's a nice interactive guide to the 787's reported problems on the
Guardian's site today:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/interactive/2013/jan/11/b...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/interactive/2013/jan/11/boeing-787-dreamliner-
faults-interactive)

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tocomment
Does anyone know why the 787 seems to have gone so wrong? Wasn't it
tremendously delayed and then it seems like I'm hearing about problem after
problem?

Is this a sign our civilization is in technological decay and we're losing our
ability to build advanced machinery?

~~~
sbierwagen
1.) General consensus is "too many outside contractors, not enough QA."
Outsourcing taken too far, essentially.

2.) No.

~~~
gvb
1+) The 787 was _three_ BHAGs[1] in terms of...

a) Fuel economy: drove the primarily composite structure (causing much angst
during development), drove using the lighter weight lithium batteries which is
the current issue, etc. A 20% fuel improvement is incredibly ambitious goal (I
say _is_ because last I heard they were still falling short, although still
remarkable at ~15%(?)).

b) Cost (sharing): drove the huge number of outside contractors, all or most
of whom invested a substantial amount of their own money in the pieces parts
that they designed and built for the 787.

c) Schedule. Total miss. The schedule was predicated on no major problems...
in hindsight the (a) and (b) BHAGs guaranteed the schedule miss.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Hairy_Audacious_Goal>

~~~
yread
ANA said in a statement that their 787s are 21% more fuel efficient per seat
than a 767

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bsimpson
How long until United stops running the 787 ad at the beginning of every
flight?

~~~
jdavis703
Just flew United on the 14th and didn't see the ad.

