Boeing have suggested some battery design changes that it believes will reduce the fire risk by increasing the separation between cells in the lithium-ion batteries to reduce heat or fire spreading within the batteries. This fix would allow the 50 grounded jets to fly again while the company looks for a longer term fix. Boeing’s certification tests put the chances of smoke from a 787 battery at one in every 10 million flight hours. Deborah Hersman, head of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said: “The 787 fleet has accumulated less than 100,000 flight hours yet there have now been two battery events,”
A China Southern Boeing 787 flew from Texas to Everett, Washington on Thursday February 7 after the FAA granted Boeing permission with strict conditions. Now, Boeing has been granted permission to could conduct test flights of the 787 to gather additional data. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) noted that test flights will have restrictions, including being limited to o airspace over unpopulated areas. pre-flight testing and inspections, and in-flight battery monitoring.
ANA (All Nippon Airways) has cancelled its 787 flights for all of March.
United Airlines six 787s grounded by the FAA in January have been removed from their February schedule. The airline was supposed to start Houston to Lagos, Nigeria but this was postponed. The airline is still saying Denver to Tokyo will still start March 31st. Would you fly?
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No, the battery is the least of the design. Too many technology changes in one plane, which has had insufficient testing. What happens to a composite fuselage under duty cycles, occasionally coated with de-icer and fuel? What happens when it catches fire? Nobody knows. It’s one thing to do try all this stuff out on military fighter or civilian kitplane, quite another to throw all your newest tech into a civilian airliner and after computer code “testing” say ALL GOOD.