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| Burned out lithium-ion battery |
Public confidence has been badly shaken by revelations that the large lithium ion batteries which power 787 Dreamliner jets are dangerously unreliable. The damage has been done not just to Boeing aircraft and its new jetliner, but to a vast range of industry and government elements who are supposed to know what’s going on. In the case of the 787 batteries, assurances that it was safe are now seen to be just plain wrong. Further, no one seems to know how such an alarming misconception could have gotten started and been perpetuated even into the daily commercial service of these jets. The top transportation safety official in the U.S. says that, among others, the Federal Aviation Administration accepted test results from Boeing in 2007 that failed to properly assess the risks of smoke or fire from the batteries. Deorah Hersman of the National Transportation Safety Board said that in a battery failure this year one of the eight cells had a short circuit and the fire spread to the rest of the cells. Boeing’s tests showed no indication that the new lithium-ion batteries could erupt in flames Boeing wrongly concluded that the batteries were likely to emit smoke less than once in every 10 million flight hours. Once the planes were placed in service the batteries overheated and emitted smoke twice in January and caused one fire, after about 50,000 hours of commercial flights. In effect all bets are off about the lithium-ion battery. Boeing has been given clearance to fly the 787 for test purposes but all other planes remain on the ground and airlines are being warned to expect delays in scheduled deliveries.
