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Transportation Technology

Boeing's 787 Dreamliner Has Taken Its Battery Certification Flight 123

Posted by timothy from the could-barely-lift-all-those-AAs dept.
Daniel_Stuckey writes "Boeing just flew the flight it needed to certify the improved battery housing on its 787 Dreamliner, whose battery woes have marred the next generation plane's launch. Here is Flight Aware's live data map, showing the path of BOE272, the test flight from Friday afternoon. On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that the 787's recertification flight was pending. A Boeing news release stated yesterday that the '...flight departed from Paine Field in Everett, Wash. at 10:39 a.m. Pacific with a crew of 11 onboard, including two representatives from the FAA. The airplane flew for 1 hours and 49 minutes, landing back at Paine Field at 12:28 p.m. Pacific.'"
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Boeing's 787 Dreamliner Has Taken Its Battery Certification Flight More

Boeing's 787 Dreamliner Has Taken Its Battery Certification Flight

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  • People can quote all the safety statistics they want about flying - I prefer to keep my feet on terra firma, tyvm. I hate flying on any plane as it is... but I wouldn't ever step foot on this thing!

    • Re:No way! (Score:4, Funny)

      by Hamsterdan ( 815291 ) on Saturday April 06, 2013 @02:33PM (#43380273)

      You know walking is slower than flying :)

      • Re:No way! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by fustakrakich ( 1673220 ) on Saturday April 06, 2013 @02:34PM (#43380281) Journal

        These days? Not so much...

        • Tell you what, why dont we meet in shanghai. Call me when you arrive, Im taking a plane.

        • I flew from New York City to Boston a few weeks ago. The flight I was on was cancelled, the one after it was full, the one after that was cancelled, and so I finally got on the one after that. I arrived at the airport at 1pm and at my destination at 9:30pm. A bicycle wouldn't have been faster, but a bus would. So would a train in theory, but the reason I was taking the plane at all was that the train line was out of action all day due to a derailment.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by ColdSam ( 884768 )
            That same day a bus crashed while driving from NYC to Boston and those passengers never reached their destination. In other words, your anecdote is meaningless - planes are still faster than buses.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Ichijo ( 607641 )
        And bicycling is faster [usatoday.com].

    • Re:No way! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Saturday April 06, 2013 @02:37PM (#43380291) Journal
      You know, just about any of the commercial crafts are safe. The real issue is how are the airlines doing their maintenance. US airlines used to be the best. Now, they are offshoring and I think that they are an issue. For example, I grew up on American Airlines. BUT, they are now offshoring this to China. Recall the seats that were not fastened? That was the Chinese company. Scary. Very scary.

      • I'm just curious, how does an airline offshore their maintenance to China? It seems like this is the sort of thing they have to be prepared to do for any plane in the fleet at most major hubs, no?

        Or are we just talking about major retrofits, and only for planes that are in suitable condition for long overseas flights?

        • Re:No way! (Score:5, Informative)

          by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Saturday April 06, 2013 @03:49PM (#43380689)

          For scheduled maintenance, airlines fly their aircraft to major maintenance bases around the world - if they do their own maintenance, that's usually one of their hubs.

          • Yeah, but isn't it far less economically viable to fly a plane all the way to China for maintenance instead of to somewhere in the middle of the US? You have to pay a pilot to fly all of those hours there and back, and you're wasting a whole lot of fuel to get there. When you do it in the US, you can have a normal flight to that particular airport, or nearby if it's not already a hub at a major airport, and a route back out from that airport to whichever route the plane is going on afterwords.

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by 0123456 ( 636235 )

              Yeah, but isn't it far less economically viable to fly a plane all the way to China for maintenance instead of to somewhere in the middle of the US?

              Wherever you perform the maintenance, you're going to have to fly there. If you have more than two brain cells to rub together, you ensure that the last revenue flight the plane makes before maintenance brings it close to the maintenance depot, wherever in the world that may happen to be.

            • When you are talking about tens of millions for a C or D check, the cost of the flight to the maintenance base is a minor factor.

          • I used to work down the flight line for a company that does scheduled maintenance for airlines and freight companies. FedEx seems to do all their maintenance there. They also seem to do more maintenance for foreign airlines than domestic.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Richard_at_work ( 517087 )

        Do you really want a list of all the maintenance fuckups caused by unionised American maintenance companies and groups? Like the unauthorised manner of engine change that ultimately caused the downing of AA 191?

        The problem isn't outsourcing, it never has been - but as always, it's a good excuse for those who want to bang the nationalistic drum.

        • Re:No way! (Score:5, Interesting)

          by amiga3D ( 567632 ) on Saturday April 06, 2013 @04:14PM (#43380799)

          No one has a perfect record but generally American workers have a better record. One thing that helps is that if you screw something up then 7 or 8 years down the road it causes a problem it will come back on you. They keep records of work done that is stamped by journeymen mechanics and that record stays for the life of the aircraft. Generally with overseas contractors your chance of actually putting the mechanic responsible in jail is nil. I do depot level work and I know that I and my fellow mechanics obsess over safety to the point that it often causes clashes with supervisors who push for speed. I've seen multiple times that a mechanic refused to stamp something because he didn't feel comfortable with it and no amount of pressure would persuade them to do it. Many is the time is that I've heard "It's my fucking stamp and I'm not going to jail for your ass!"

          • Exactly. In fact, where American went to, is the same place that most of the Chinese national airlines, ESP. CHINA AIRLINES (worst record GOING) use. They have had issue after issue after issue. And with those seats, Horton was busy blaming the unions and then it turned out that it was the Chinese group.

            This is no different than the AA flights that fly the Latin American routes, Either Carty or Aprey had started using the Colombian base for those aircraft's. Then they have seen a rash of accidents that w

            • CHINA AIRLINES (worst record GOING)

              Nope. That honor would go to Air France, with almost as many wrecks as American and United combined.

              And if you want to bitch about maintenance, the repair work that caused Japan Airlines 123 to crash was performed at the Boeing factory in Washington. But all that shit happened a long time ago. The only places wrecking airplanes regularly these days are in Africa, Russia, Brazil, Pakistan, India, and a few other backwater countries.

              • Ah, Air France. Flight 447? An Etihad Airways pilot with 520 hours of experience flying planes was able to handle a very similar situation with no loss of life. But hey, the west is best

                http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/5722038/ [airliners.net]

                • 447 was so many factors were EVERYTHING went wrong. Tired captain that was just woke up right at the tail-end of issues. You had a junior FO along with an even more junior IO (weird that AF allows such junior pilots on international routes rather than keeping them domestic in Europe). Then you had no feedback going to the FO so that the IO who was losing it was actually killing the speed. That downage was a case of so many thing that could wrong, and they did. Sad.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by sjames ( 1099 )

            This, 1000 times. Without a strong union, a supervisor could easily threaten a tech into signing off.

        • First off, The pilot, walt lux, of that was a close friends of our family. My dad and he would ssched together on the DC-10 of that time. In fact, Walt had allowed me to jump on that particular aircraft.
          Secondly, the engine swap was not in the books, BUT ALL of the airlines did it that way. In fact, DC showed many of the companies how to shortcut that. American did NOT develop it.
          Third, the Chinese (and other maintenance bases such as the one in Columbia) have screwed up a number of things royally. US A

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Guppy ( 12314 )

          Do you really want a list of all the maintenance fuckups caused by unionised American maintenance companies and groups? Like the unauthorised manner of engine change that ultimately caused the downing of AA 191?

          A telling point of the example of AA-191, is that it dates to 1979. I'm not sure that reaching that far back for an incident occurring nearly 34 years ago makes the point intended. Given the amount of time that has passed since something so spectacular has happened, it might even serve as a counterexample as to how successful the current system is as preventing similar incidents.

      • Re:No way! (Score:4, Informative)

        by Alex Zepeda ( 10955 ) on Sunday April 07, 2013 @12:49AM (#43382709)

        Uh. No.

        http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/2012/10/03/american-airlines-seats/1610189/ [usatoday.com]

        The work in question was either done in-house by American Airlines employees or in a contractor's facility in North Carolina. Unless North Carolina is now part of China, your fear mongering is just that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Viol8 ( 599362 )

      I hate flying to , but even I know that I'm more likely to die in the car on the way to the airport than flying in the plane. But the drive doesn't bother me - the flight does. I suppose it doesn't matter how many times someone tells you flying is safe , that primitive part of your brain is telling you that there's just something fundamentally wrong about travelling in a metal tube 7 miles up at 500mph surrounded by 50 tons of fuel. ;o)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by amiga3D ( 567632 )

        I'm usually terrified until we reach cruising altitude. Your best chance of dying is on takeoff as that is when the aircraft is most vulnerable to a failure.

        • It's not the flying part - it's the hitting the ground you should be scared of.
          I never used to have a problem with flying, and I'm still 'fine' with it - but I still remember with f'in terror a take-off I had from LHR.
          Go down the runway, nose up, we're going up - and then we drop like a stone for a few seconds on what I assume was an air-pocket. Seeing things on the ground getting significantly bigger whilst the nose is still pointing up is *not* a good feeling.
          Now the majority of my brain is reasonably

          • I've had that happen twice, and both times I was listening to air traffic control and the crew on the headphones. What happened to me was they had another plane coming in for a landing in the opposite direction right above us, and the other plane was coming in too low, and our plane had to chop the throttles, and drop 500 feet because there was less than (the planned) 1000 feet between us and the plane above us! It's pretty f'n scary, you're right. All of the sudden the engines go from a roar to a whispe

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by starling ( 26204 )

        I have good news for you - the 787 is a plastic tube, not metal.

      • You're probably not really afraid of the metal tube, altitude, speed, or fuel. As you noted, those are "reasonable" (i.e., based on reasons) arguments - but as you also noted they're not really true so there's something more emotional going on. You're probably afraid of the loss of control coupled with the "mystery" behind it all - knowing how aerodynamics works at the abstract level is a poor answer to the feeling in your head that it just doesn't seem like it should work, or be safe.

        I recommend going to y

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jamesh ( 87723 )

          You're probably not really afraid of the metal tube, altitude, speed, or fuel. As you noted, those are "reasonable" (i.e., based on reasons) arguments - but as you also noted they're not really true so there's something more emotional going on. You're probably afraid of the loss of control coupled with the "mystery" behind it all - knowing how aerodynamics works at the abstract level is a poor answer to the feeling in your head that it just doesn't seem like it should work, or be safe.

          The thing that scares me is the knowledge that if something goes wrong I may have some time to contemplate my impending doom, as compared to an oncoming car crossing into my lane. That, the possibility that if a fire started there isn't a lot of places I can go to avoid it - the smoke goes pretty much everywhere.

          But you're right, it's not really a rational fear

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by quenda ( 644621 )

        I hate flying to , but even I know that I'm more likely to die in the car on the way to the airport than flying in the plane.

        Sorry, not true. Flying is far safer than driving the same distance, but roughly the same risk per hour as driving.
        Takeoff is far more dangerous per minute than driving, so you are right to be nervous. But once it settles into a cruising altitude, relax.

    • One way or another, we're all flying.
  • Anybody who's followed the travails of the 787 knows that Boeing still hasn't root caused the issue. Aside from better separation of cells, nothing has been done to prevent future batteries from failing and melting. There is a backup battery, and a Ram Air Turbine for critical flight control, but considering how poorly engineered and conceived the battery system has turned out to be I don't trust the general engineering of the plane.

    • Re:I wont be a guinea pig (Score:5, Interesting)

      by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Saturday April 06, 2013 @02:35PM (#43380285) Journal
      Give me a break. The plane is solid. And as to this battery, it is in a strong case that vents to the outside. If you are up in the air, then it will go out on its own. If down by the ground, not a problem.

      Any real issues with this plane has been the fact that Boeing did NOT build it themselves. .Sadly, they allowed their board to be composed of others outside of the aviation industry, who were more business idiots than engineers.
      Regardless, I trust the craft, but think that it was expensive. Hopefully, next time, Boeing will revert back to how they do things.

      • Re:I wont be a guinea pig (Score:4, Insightful)

        by peragrin ( 659227 ) on Saturday April 06, 2013 @02:44PM (#43380329)

        Exactly, this issue was a bad battery design, a design not even done by boeing. If they replaced it with a standard lead acid it would have been flying already. The problem is the extra weight by multiple larger heavier batteries. So they fixed this version. Being the design it is it wull probably have future issues but the plane itself is safe. You dont think your laptop or tablet is going to catch fire do you. But that has happened too.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Viol8 ( 599362 )

          So the plane is safe so long as the battery doesn't catch fire - again - and get hot enough to burn through its containment box. Hmm , let me think about that definition of "safe" for a moment....

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by khallow ( 566160 )

            So the plane is safe so long as the battery doesn't catch fire - again - and get hot enough to burn through its containment box. Hmm , let me think about that definition of "safe" for a moment....

            Where is it going to get the energy to get hot enough to burn through the containment box? There's only so much energy in that battery. Build a box to contain that and that's it - as long as the fools who can't wire batteries correctly don't figure out a way past that.

            • Where is it going to get the energy to get hot enough to burn through the containment box? There's only so much energy in that battery. Build a box to contain that and that's it - as long as the fools who can't wire batteries correctly don't figure out a way past that.

              I would assume; well actually, I know that the battery is there for a reason. In the first few thousand hours of flights we have already had several failures. What is the chance that some time soonish the batteries burn out when they are needed. How do you feel about your fly by wire plane if the servos aren't working?

              This is quite apart form the fact that having a battery like this in a place with no fire extinguisher seems like bad design to me.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by khallow ( 566160 )

                What is the chance that some time soonish the batteries burn out when they are needed. How do you feel about your fly by wire plane if the servos aren't working?

                In flight, the engines provide the power. Past that, I don't know, though I think the plane has a mechanical backup in case the entire electrical system fails.

              • Re: (Score:3)

                by bored ( 40072 )

                having a battery like this in a place with no fire extinguisher

                Uh, once a LCO battery goes, your not putting it out with a "fire extinguisher". These things are nasty, and the lithium itself burns so hot that its damn hard to contain it.

                Check out https://leehamnews.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/airbus-examines-lithium-battery-safety-fire-suppression/ [wordpress.com]

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by amiga3D ( 567632 )

            I don't blame you. It most likely is not going to cause a crash but a fire on board like that is never anything to instill trust. I can't believe they didn't catch this long before the release to service of this aircraft. Some people need to be fired, from the top down.

          • Assume that it catchs fire. That is the SAME assumption that Boeing has made. That is why they not have the battery in the equivalence of a fireproof safe, where there is a value that allows for pressure to spill outwards. IOW, if it explodes or catches fire, it will be directed OUTWARD, not inward. That is safe.

          • Re:I wont be a guinea pig (Score:4, Informative)

            by Xylantiel ( 177496 ) on Saturday April 06, 2013 @05:37PM (#43381183)
            No - the plane is safe even if the battery catches fire. My understanding of the comment is that safe failure is the result of the change in design. With the previous design, battery failure by fire could endanger the aircraft. With the new design battery failure by fire does not endanger the aircraft. This is how subsystem failure is managed in aircraft. Whether or not a failure endangers the craft has huge implications for how its safety is evaluated.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by 0123456 ( 636235 )

              No - the plane is safe even if the battery catches fire.

              Because the plane doesn't actually need the battery or anything. They just put it in there for grins.

              Now, the odds of both engines failing and the battery failing at the same time so you lose electrical power are small, but the battery is there for a reason.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by sjames ( 1099 )

                That is correct, it doesn't. If all else fails, the Ram Air Turbines will deploy and provide emergency power and hydraulic pressure sufficient to manually pilot the [plane (now a glider) to a landing.

                The battery does come in handy when the plane is on the ground with engines powered off.

            • Exactly. Basically, the battery is now in a fireproof box with a door that opens to the outside. IOW, any explosion will send it OUT of the plane, not inside. What is interesting is that the normal way for a pressured aircraft's door open is INWARD. That way, the door is secured and incapable of opening when under pressure. THis door opens outwards. If pressure builds up, their is a check value to vent it to the outside. If it explodes, then the blast blows the door and the energy is directed outward.

          • Easy fix. Sealed box for the battery, and a hose from each battery into some kind of manifold that vents to the outside. You've probably seen fighter jets that have "WARNING: APU Exhaust" on the side. Just have a similar warning for Burning Lithium-Ion Battery exhaust.

            I'm joking of course.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by DuBois ( 105200 )

          If they replaced it with a standard lead acid it would have been flying already.

          Few large airplanes use lead-acid batteries anymore. NiCad is pretty standard for anything larger than a Cessna 210.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by monzie ( 729782 )

          My laptop does not fly. It does not carry 200+ passengers.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

          The battery manufacturer was exonerated. The problem turned out to be wiring done by Boeing.

      • Re:I wont be a guinea pig (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 06, 2013 @02:59PM (#43380379)

        I don't think it was even a bad battery design. It was wired incorrectly. [guardian.co.uk] After reading the book "Airframe," I understand why Boeing hasn't hyped this more. They can't shit on their customers, so they have to keep their mouths shut lest they lose sales to the people they are (rightfully) blaming.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 0123456 ( 636235 )

        Give me a break. The plane is solid. And as to this battery, it is in a strong case that vents to the outside.

        I'm guessing they didn't actually set it on fire on this 'certification' flight and prove they can land safely at the maximum allowed ETOPS range?

      • On what grounds do you trust an aircraft largely designed by, as you put it, "business idiots" rather than engineers? The largest topic in engineering ethics is the natural conflict between corporate interest and safe design.

        I don't trust "engineers" who can't even find the root cause of battery issues, and I certainly wouldn't trust my life to them.

        • They found out. What is being looked at, is how to address it quickly, while they work on the long term solution. FAA is a BITCH to get things through. It can take years for changes. As such, what is needed is a re-working of the battery system with loads of testing. The patch that went in, pretty much guarentees that if ANYTHING goes wrong with this battery, the plane is safe. Ideally, it would be used even with say a tesla battery system.

      • Re:I wont be a guinea pig (Score:5, Informative)

        by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Saturday April 06, 2013 @03:56PM (#43380721)

        Sorry, but the fact that this aircraft was "not built by Boeing" have nothing to do with the issues that have shown up thus far - no Boeing aircraft have flown with a battery system designed or built by Boeing, it's always been an item that's been outsourced (same for Airbus).

        The fastener issues were 100% Boeings direct fault (hey, let's ignore the fastener suppliers lead time and assume they can fill any order we want in an mpossible time - wait, no, they can't. Arse. Let's use off the shelf non-aviation grade fasteners then and replace them before the plane flies! Oops, that just cost us months of extra work....).

        The side of body issues were a Boeing design fault.

        The electrical panel fire was a Boeing design issue.

        None of the issues the aircraft has thus far seen has been the result of a part that was outsourced when before it hadn't.

        Spirit builds the entire 737 fuselage as an outsourced process, no issues there...

        Thousands of suppliers provide major components of the 777, no issues there.

        • Total BS.
          The way Boeing aircraft design has always worked is that engineers come up with CATIA designs that craftsman start implementing. As this is put together, the engineers crawl in and amongst the air frame and checks how things will go. I assume that Airbus does the same. Many times, parts get re-engineered as the engineers play with them and see what happens. In this case, it was because of the outsourcing that they could NOT do things that way. It was basically, a waterfall approach to design ra

          • I'm afraid its far far from "total BS".

            Both Boeing and Airbus do indeed use CATIA, but your version of build events is far from the way things have worked for the past couple of decades - the designers do virtual assemblies regularly. The first time there is any decent feed back from teh engineers on major parts is when the first aircraft is being assembled for real.

            Boeing actually forced brand (internally developed) new design software on all of its outsourced partners so they could be included in the vir

      • The De Havilland was solid except it's flawed fatiguing around its square window design. The DC-10 was solid except for its flawed cargo door design. The 737 was solid except for its flawed rudder design that lead to in-flight hardovers. When each of these solid planes crashed into the solid earth it wasn't the earth that shattered into a million pieces.
        • And yet, all of those issues were from the 50-70's design: the early days of pressurized commercial aircraft. The only aircraft that has had a real issue since then, has been Airbus with their lack of feedback to the pilots. They do not know what the other or the CPU is doing with it. That is why American grounded their Airbus A300's. Even now, American is apparently in discussions with Airbus on getting pilot feedback, but they want it for free. Airbus is saying otherwise, so it remains to be see what is g

          • Except that there was only a single A300 equipped with fly by wire, and that machine was only used to test the system for A320.

    • Anyone who has read Nicholas Nassim Taleb's "Black Swan" will immediately see the problem here. Rare events are almost impossible to predict mathematically with a small statistical set.

      Without a solid understanding of the underlying problem (which they still don't have) they are using "testing" to verify the stability of the electrical system. But testing will not and can not effectively assess risk.

      This is a disaster waiting to happen. Nothing has been solved.

    • I'm not particularly troubled. The transition from lead-acid to NiCd followed a similar trajectory.

  • Seriously, Tesla would be smart to get their work FAA certed so that other aircrafts, possibly 787, can install it and count that it will be solid.

    • Seriously, Tesla would be smart to get their industrial strength, enterprise-ready, better-for-the-environment batteries FAA certified so that other aircraft manufacturers,such as Boeing, Airbus, and others, can license the patented technology and count that it will make Tesla, and its investors, more money.

      There, FTFY.

  • They still don't know the cause... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Adult film producer ( 866485 ) <van@i2pmail.org> on Saturday April 06, 2013 @02:40PM (#43380303)
    and that does not reassure me, at all.

    • Re:They still don't know the cause... (Score:4, Funny)

      by sribe ( 304414 ) on Saturday April 06, 2013 @03:05PM (#43380413)

      Well, hey, how are they supposed to ever figure out the cause if they can't put them all back in the air and get a few more instances to analyze? ;-)

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by JavaBear ( 9872 )

      a less than 2 hour flight, on a plane scheduled for 12+ hours, and where most battery incidents happened at the end of the flights?

      No. I'm not reassured at all, either.

      • Re:They still don't know the cause... (Score:4, Informative)

        by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Saturday April 06, 2013 @04:02PM (#43380741)

        Boeing flew the 787 for over 7,500 hours during certification, testing and route proving without this issue showing up - what would you have them do?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

          Clearly they didn't test it in real life conditions, i.e. a plane full of passengers mucking about with the entertainment system and afterwards the operators plugging it in to charge while forgetting to switch stuff off etc.

          Whatever they did it wasn't enough, which is an indication that they don't know how to properly test it.

          • That's exactly what route proving is - a representative example of a passenger load flying in a representative cabin layout on a representative revenue route.

            You do realise that both batteries in the 787 that have had issues has nothing to do with passenger activity, right?

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

              Whatever they did it was inadequate because it didn't find the problem the first time. One would hope they have improved their testing to cover this failure mode now, but it doesn't inspire confidence that they missed it the first time. Especially since the battery pack was known to be potentially dangerous and they had to get special permission to use lithium cells.

              • You do realise that certification testing isn't supposed to find every design issue, every manufacturing issue and every materials issue? If it were, no aircraft would ever be certified, ever - the testing would be too costly and take decades.

    • Here's the cause - outsourcing design to their suppliers. A large number of disparate companies had leeway to determine how to make their product meet more general specifications. How is it surprising that we're now seeing poor results of the integration of these systems? And how exactly are you going to troubleshoot it? Boeing can use the delivery specifications all it wants, but any error or omissions (see: A7D brake scandal) will have you running in circles. Boeing needed to own the design top to bottom

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yes they do. It was wired incorrectly, [guardian.co.uk] but then that's tantamount to calling your buyers idiots. Not good business. Instead, Boeing eats a shit sandwich, the battery compartment is reinforced so even if the airline miswires it and causes the battery to overheat, the problem is better contained, and the airlines keep buying new planes.

      • From TFA:
        "Japan's transport safety board said in a report that the battery for the aircraft's auxiliary power unit was incorrectly connected to the main battery that overheated.

        According to Reuters Boeing sources claim to have a fix to their battery problems that involves increasing the space between the lithium-ion battery cells."

        Which suggests that they don't know what the cause is. How does separating the cells fix an incorrect wiring problem?

  • The battery has not marred the plane's launch. In fact, the plane has been launched and in service for a while. Journalists are "historians" indeed - lol.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by 0123456 ( 636235 )

      The battery has not marred the plane's launch. In fact, the plane has been launched and in service for a while.

      Being grounded for weeks due to a marked tendency to catch fire is the kind of thing that most people would consider to have marred its launch.

      I certainly don't plan to get on a Doomliner in the next couple of years.

      • The battery has not marred the plane's launch. In fact, the plane has been launched and in service for a while.

        Being grounded for weeks due to a marked tendency to catch fire is the kind of thing that most people would consider to have marred its launch.

        I certainly don't plan to get on a Doomliner in the next couple of years.

        The battery has not marred the plane's launch. Being three years late (and all of the issues that caused the delay) marred the plane's launch.

  • BOE272 [flightaware.com], since submitter apparently forgot that link.

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