U.S. Transportation regulators are asking Boeing for a complete history of the lithium-ion batteries used on 787 Dreamliners. Battery problems have grounded all 50 787s in use around the world. (Jan. 30)
Boeing Co. said Wednesday that numerous replacements of potentially flammable lithium-ion batteries by airlines flying the new 787 Dreamliner were not made because of safety concerns.
"We have not seen 787 battery replacements occurring as a result of safety concerns," the company said in a statement. "Batteries are a replaceable unit on airplanes, regardless of the technology used."
The statement comes after All Nippon Airways Co. and Japan Airlines Co., Japan's two biggest airlines, said they had repeatedly replaced sub-par lithium-ion batteries on their Dreamliners in the months before the two incidents that led to the 787 groundings.
Boeing said: "The batteries are being returned because our robust protection scheme ensures that no battery that has been deeply discharged or improperly disconnected can be used. The third-highest category for battery returns is exceeding the battery shelf life -- this is a fact of life in dealing with batteries; they sometimes expire and must be returned."
Comments from All Nippon, the Boeing jetliner's biggest customer to date, and JAL pointed to reliability issues with the batteries long before one caught fire on a JAL 787 at Boston's airport and a second was badly charred and melted on an ANA domestic flight that was forced into an emergency landing.
ANA said it changed 10 batteries on its 787s last year, but did not inform accident investigators in the United States because the incidents, including five batteries that had unusually low charges, did not compromise the plane's safety, spokesman Ryosei Nomura said on Wednesday.
JAL also replaced batteries on the 787 “on a few occasions”, said spokeswoman Sze Hunn Yap, declining to be more specific on when units were replaced or whether these were reported to authorities.
ANA did, however, inform Boeing of the faults that began in May, and returned the batteries to their manufacturer, GS Yuasa Corp. A spokesman for the battery maker declined to comment on Wednesday. Shares of the company fell 1.2 percent.
Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel said the airplane maker could not comment as the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has indicated this is now part of their investigation.
LITTLE HEADWAY
The New York Times earlier quoted an NTSB spokeswoman as saying the agency would include these “numerous issues” with the 787 battery in its investigations.
Under aviation inspection rules, airlines are required to perform detailed battery inspections once every two years.
Officials are carrying out detailed tests on the batteries, chargers and monitoring units in Japan and the United States, but have so far made little headway in finding out what caused the battery failures.
Japan's transport ministry said the manufacturing process at the company which makes the 787 battery's monitoring unit did not appear to be linked to the problem on the ANA Dreamliner that made the emergency landing.
The NTSB said on Tuesday it was carrying out a microscopic investigation of the JAL 787 battery. Neither it nor the Japan Transport Safety Board has been able to say when they are likely to complete their work.
The global fleet of 50 Dreamliners - 17 of which are operated by ANA - remain grounded, increasing the likely financial impact to Boeing, which is still producing the aircraft but has stopped delivering them, and the airlines that fly the Dreamliner.
Boeing is due to report its latest quarterly earnings later on Wednesday, and ANA posts its earnings on Thursday. ANA shares rose 0.56 percent on Wednesday.
