Dreamliners grounded after emergency landing
All Boeing 787s have been grounded in Japan after one of the new Dreamliner aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing earlier today.
All Nippon Airways announced it was grounding its entire fleet of 17 Dreamliners when its flight NH 692 from Yamaguchi Ube was forced to land shortly after take-off because of battery problems.
It was the sixth incident to hit the Dreamliner in little over a week (see earlier story).
Japan Airlines immediately followed suit, announcing that it would ground its fleet of seven 787s until further notice.
In the US, the Federal Aviation Administration has already announced an investigation into the revolutionary carbon-fibre aircraft, Boeing’s newest plane, after five safety incidents were report last week alone.
These included fuel leaks, a cracked window in the cockpit, brake problems and an electrical fire.
ANA was the launch carrier for the aircraft but Thomson plans to start operating flights to Florida and Mexico on the 787 from this spring and British Airways has 24 on order.
Thomson declined to say whether the well-publicised technical glitches had impacted on bookings for holidays based on the new aircraft.
The latest safety incident, when smoke seeped into the cockpit, is similar to last week’s emergency when a fire broke out on a 787 shortly after it landed in the US.
The source of that fire was the aircraft’s lithium Ion battery pack. The FAA had already announced concerns about the use of lithium batteries in the aircraft’s design as these are known to overheat in flight – it’s the reason passengers are asked not to pack lithium batteries in their check-in luggage.
ANA said that the 129 passengers and eight crew were evacuated, with a number of people sustaining minor injuries in this latest incident.
The two Japanese airlines have by far the greatest number of 787s between them, but it is also used by Qatar Airways on flights from London, United Airlines has six, and it is operated by Air India, Ethiopian Airlines, LAN Airlines and Lot Polish Airlines.
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Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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