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Boeing on Friday said it was stopping delivery of 787s (popularly called Dreamliners) until the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the national aviation authority of the USA, ensured safety of the potentially
flammable lithium-ion batteries that led to grounding of the aircraft this week in various places. [See: Boeing's statement] The FAA ordered the grounding of the 787s until the Boeing proved that the batteries used in the aircraft were safe. Boeing, however, said that it would continue to build the carbon-composite 787. The aircraft is assembled in Everett in Washington and North Charleston in South Carolina out of pieces that are manufactured across the globe.
Officials from FAA, Boeing and US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) joined authorities in Japan to investigate the reason for warning lights to go off on a domestic flight of All Nippon Airways this week. The plane made an emergency landing at Takamatsu airport in Japan following the incident. Soon after this, aviation regulators in the USA and across the world grounded 50 Dreamliners in service. The aircraft has been flying safely for over a year now, carrying over a million passengers.
But it has run into problems in recent weeks, including problems like fuel leakage. The biggest safety concern came over the lithium-ion batteries,. Lighter than the conventional batteries, these batteries are faster to recharge and are potentially flammable. The FAA, while announcing the grounding of six 787s in the USA, said the airlines would have to prove that the batteries were safe and complied with the rules. It said battery failures produced flammable chemicals, heat damage and smoke, posing threat to the aircraft and its passengers.
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