The safety crisis surrounding Boeing’s ultra-modern 787 Dreamliner deepened on Wednesday when the US’s aviation regulator ordered all US-registered operators of the aircraft to ground them until they could prove their batteries were safe.
The Federal Aviation Administration’s action followed a second apparent fire in a battery on one of the airliners, which came into service in September 2011. In the latest incident, an All Nippon Airlines 787 had to make an emergency landing early on Wednesday at Takamatsu in western Japan after the pilot received an emergency indication about the battery and noticed a strange smell. That incident follows a fire in a battery on a Japan Airlines 787 on January 7 at Boston Airport.
The FAA made it clear that, despite confusion about the second incident’s exact circumstances, it regarded the incident as having involved the risk of a serious fire. The FAA’s move is likely to prompt other aviation regulators worldwide to take similar action, grounding all the 787s still in operation. Both ANA and JAL had already announced they were grounding their fleets – which make up for around half the 50 aircraft already operating.