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No one wants to be on a plane with batteries that are liable to explode, and since Boeing grounded its 787 Dreamliners after such an incident, no one has had to be. Except for the test crew that took one into the yesterday. But don’t worry, it all turned out just fine.
The flight was intended to get some more information about those pesky sometimes-bursting-into-flames lithium-ion batteries, and took off from Boeing Field in Seattle. The battery lasted two hours and 19 minutes, and all in all, “The crew reports that the flight was uneventful,” as Boeing put it in a statement. The FAA cleared such test flights on Thursday, and although there are none planned for today, you can bet there’ll be some more in the coming days.
Boeing has said the battery information it’s gathered on the flight is part of its flaming-battery investigation, but declined to share anything more than that. And although an uneventful flight is definitely good for those on it, who knows how much light that could actually shed on what is wrong. Boeing is currently working on an intermediate battery redesign that could mitigate issues in the near future, so hopefully they’re getting the info they need to pull it off. It’s a bummer to see all these birds grounded. [Reuters]
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I commented a week or so ago regarding the possibility of test flying the plane in order to recreate the problem. Some smarty pants said that would be impossible as it would be too unsafe.
Well, I’m looking quite smug right now.
A two hour test flight over a populated area where you can land in 20 minutes in case of an in-flight lithium fire isn’t fooling anyone. My concern as a passenger and more importantly as a commercial pilot with over 10k hours on Boeings and Airbuses is what the hell happens when you’re half way across the Atlantic with the nearest airport 120 minutes flying time away. If , god forbid, this happened your only option could well be ditching into the Atlantic and I can guarantee you that mid Atlantic is no smooth Hudson River!
The best you could hope for would be a conveniently located archipelago is within range. The Air Transat A330 that ran out of fuel and glided for 120km before managing to reach the Azores had luck on its side.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_236
But but but… you might find an undersea Empire with genetic modification technology that allows you to gain super powers!
Finally a sensible voice in this debate!
They should not ground these planes, just test with a model on the ground how a battery fire would harm the plane and the passengers. I have my doubts tbh with the materials these planes are made with today and how they’re designed that it would cause any harm at all. I bet a load of these batteries could melt with no problems to any one.
The sobering fact is that for an uncontrollable fire on an aircraft you have approximately 14 minutes to get it on the ground. After that its pretty much ‘game over’.