WASHINGTON – It’s likely that burning lithium ion batteries on two Boeing 787 Dreamliners were caused by overcharging, aviation safety and battery experts said Friday, pointing to developments in the investigation of the Boeing incidents as well as a battery fire in a business jet more than a year ago.
An investigator in Japan, where a 787 made an emergency landing earlier this week, said the charred insides of the plane’s lithium ion battery show the battery received voltage in excess of its design limits.
The similarity of the burned battery from the All Nippon Airways flight to the burned battery in a Japan Airlines 787 that caught fire Jan. 7 while the jet was parked at Boston’s Logan International Airport suggests a common cause, Japan transport ministry investigator Hideyo Kosugi said.
“If we compare data from the latest case here and that in the U.S., we can pretty much figure out what happened,” Kosugi said.
In the case of the 787 in Boston, the battery in the plane’s auxiliary power unit had recently received a large demand on its power and was in the process of charging when the fire ignited, a source familiar with the investigation of the 787 fire in Boston told The Associated Press.
The plane had landed a short time earlier and was empty of passengers, although a cleaning crew was working in the plane.
The source spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.
The Federal Aviation Administration issued an emergency order Wednesday temporarily grounding the six 787s belonging to United Airlines, the lone U.S. carrier operating Boeing’s newest and most technologically advanced airliner.
The Japanese carriers already had grounded their 787s, and airlines and civil aviation authorities in other countries followed suit, shutting down all 50 Dreamliners that Boeing has delivered so far.
Boeing said Friday it will stop delivering new 787s to customers until the electrical system is fixed. However, production is not stopping. The plane is assembled in Everett and North Charleston, S.C.
The aircraft maker has booked orders for more than 800 of the planes from airlines around the world attracted by its increased fuel efficiency.
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