All Nippon Airways Takes Dreamliner With Improved Battery on Test Flight

A 787 carrying top executives from Boeing and All Nippon took off from Haneda Airport on Tokyo’s waterfront Sunday morning, without incident. In the past week, regulators in the United States, Europe and Japan have all signed off on the battery fixes.

Smaller airlines are already moving ahead in reintroducing the jet to their fleets, including Ethiopian Airlines, which used a 787 Saturday on a two-hour commercial flight from the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa to Nairobi, Kenya.

But the resumption of 787 flights at All Nippon and Japan Airlines, which together own half the 50 Dreamliner jets Boeing has so far delivered, will prove the real test of whether the modified batteries will eliminate further mishaps, as well as passenger response. Both airlines have said they hope to resume commercial flights in June.

Japanese and American regulators have been investigating the lithium-ion batteries aboard the 787 after a fire on Jan. 7 in a Japan Airlines 787 parked at a gate at Boston’s Logan Airport. A second incident later that month, involving a similar battery on an All Nippon Airways plane on a Japanese domestic flight, triggered an emergency landing and led to the worldwide grounding of the planes.

Boeing engineers say their fixes to the batteries — which include better insulation between the eight cells in the battery, gentler charging to minimize stress and a new titanium venting system — eliminate all potential causes of battery fire. But the engineers also acknowledged that they may never know what caused the batteries to overheat on the Japan Airlines and All Nippon aircraft because the battery cells were so damaged.

Besides Boeing’s repairs, Japan’s Transport Ministry has requested that All Nippon and Japan Airlines also install improved battery monitoring systems on its planes, and put its 787 cockpit crews through additional flight training. Once the planes are back in service, the airlines will also take a sample of batteries every few months for tests to make sure the improvements are working.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/business/global/boeing-787-dreamliner-with-improved-battery-takes-test-flight.html?partner=rss&emc=rss