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All the 787 Dreamliners—Boeing’s most advanced passenger aeroplane ever—have been grounded because of what you can see above: a melting battery made by the Japanese company GS Yuasa Corp, integrated in the aeroplane at Boeing Everett Factory, in Everett, Washington. Looks pretty bad to me.
This is not the first time an airliner has been grounded. All Douglas DC-10s were grounded in 1979 after generalised wing damage was discovered following a crash that killed 271 people. The MD-80 was also partially grounded because of faulty wiring.
Hopefully, they will fix it and this wonderplane will fly again soon. [El Mundo—In Spanish]
Boeing Is Redesigning the 787 Dreamliner's Battery So It Can Fly Again
Boeing Details How It's Going to Fix the 787 Dreamliner's Battery Problems
Boeing 787 Dreamliner Blazes Through New Battery System Tests
The difference between those incidents is that wiring shorted and set light to flammable materials. If that battery was contained, it wouldn’t have been a threat and I’m pretty sure they do contain them as batteries can be unreliable.
The battery is not just a fire risk but given it provides power in case of generator failure, which is quite important for all fly-by-wire aircraft, there is a secondary concern that could see failure of systems in an emergency.
If for example, a problem was found with the oxygen masks in all dream-liners they would all be grounded for that, the aircraft can still function but at increased risk if there is an emergency.
There would be more than one battery and I’m not convinced of the risk at all. For sure they need to be replaced and inspected to find out what the fault is so it doesn’t happen again. However that cased looked to have contained that pretty well, there is no structural damage at all. Also they’d probably be contained in their own hold that isn’t at risk to fire. I doubt a battery would be able to burn at the temps needed to melt the hull itself, especially seeing as it would probably be reinforced there.
I really doubt 2 engines would fail on one aircraft too, it has never happened before apart from bad fuel calculations where a plane has run out of fuel.
I really doubt an Oxygen canister becoming faulty would pose any threat, yes they get hot but not hot enough to bring down a plane. Especially seeing as they’re store correctly around materials that can deal with the heat. Unless you put like 40 in a box that could easily catch fire, have that next to the fuel tanks so it heats them up to create vapor in a tank that just happened to have a short in the wiring…
I’m not saying they don’t need to fix the problem, however there is never one cause, usually a list of things. So I doubt any one was in any danger during their flight in these planes, just the media that love to jump on the hate wagon against new technologies. Like when I was coming back from Thailand and the plane had some hydraulic problem so they had to turn back making the flight 24 hours in the end + the wait to repair. Had people claiming they could have died and wanting to sue for the stress caused. Like wtf? they have like 3 hydraulic lines, a small failure in one and it’s probably mandatory to turn back to the airport and land.
I’d be more worried about the pilots than a melting battery.
I hate people.
So you’d be happy at 600mph 30,000 feet over mid Atlantic with your plane on fire cos you know, it’s only a little fire?
I’m not saying I would be happy, if we landed fine I wouldn’t give a shit personally, like I said people love to over react. We see faults that are potentially as dangerous all the time and no one cares, people only do because it is a new plane. I’d be more worried about unnoticed metal fatigue on old planes that have done like 40,000 flights than a brand new 787 catching on fire.
It needs to be fixed, it obviously is being, we don’t know who is to blame yet, probably whoever made the battery and it’ll be a thing of the past in a week. Sadly the media just love to jump on this shit and try to put fear into the public.
It is an issue, probably not a fatal one unless Boeing decided to place these in the fuel tanks or something…
“I really doubt this is going to be dangerous” ain’t an option on many health n safety/reliability tests I think you’ll find.
You are extremely naive!
P1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LYcpVtaDD0
P2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkO9bY—i0
Simple things can bring down an airplane! Where/when you trust the technology too much, a simple human mistake in design in a very simple part can bring down an entire plane down!
You dont need two engines to fail, all you need is one spectacular failure at the least expected most protected place!
People like you shouldnt be allowed anywhere near designing a public transport or public building.
I haven’t got over the news of Concorde being grounded. The 787, pah!
Another plane the media destroyed, 1 fatal accident ever from a fault of another plane which I believe was a 737 or something as common and it was the death of it. They improved the plane like lined the wings with Kevlar and strengthened the tyres but nooooo people didn’t want to fly on it.
I’d be more scared of the plane that caused the issue, I mean why didn’t that get any attention? Why did the people who’re meant to keep an eye on potential Debris on the Runway not see it?