Britain’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch, which is responsible for investigating civil aviation incidents, said the airliner, operated by Ethiopian Airlines, had been moved to a secure hangar and that a full investigation was under way.
In addition to the British investigators leading the inquiry, a team from Boeing was on site along with representatives from the airline and from two American government agencies, the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.
The fire, which broke out Friday, caused no injuries or significant damage but did disrupt travel in Britain and elsewhere. Heathrow airport said that around 40 flights had been canceled on Saturday as it cleared its backlog of delays after planes were left in the wrong location.
But the repercussions for Boeing could be more significant. Investors, mindful that hazards with the jet’s batteries had led to the grounding of the entire fleet from January to April, reacted nervously, sending Boeing’s shares down 4.7 percent on Friday.
Smoke came from the plane, named the Queen of Sheba, eight hours after it had been parked in a remote space at Heathrow and about four and a half hours before it was scheduled to depart for Ethiopia. No passengers were on the plane, which was connected to an external ground power source, according to people briefed on the incident.
It was also not clear if any maintenance was under way or how long the fire had been burning, though it was intense enough to burn through its carbon-composite skin on the top of the fuselage near the tail.
That area was not next to either of the plane’s new lithium-ion batteries, which caught fire or emitted smoke in two earlier incidents that led to the grounding of the first 50 787s. Unless they were charging, aviation experts said, the batteries would not have been in use if the plane were connected to ground power.
A team of British safety investigators began examining the plane shortly after the fire was put out. But no one involved — the investigators, Boeing, the airline or the airport — commented on the possible cause of the fire.
Other experts said that some of the plane’s wiring, and the oxygen systems for passengers, would have passed through the damaged area, which was above the rear galley. It was also possible the fire migrated from another part of the plane, they said.
Richard L. Aboulafia, an aviation consultant at the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va., said the possibilities ranged from “something pretty benign,” like a lit cigarette or a coffee machine left on, to a serious flaw in the plane’s new electrical system, which includes other innovative components besides the batteries. Or, he said, it could be something “not as easy or as terrible,” like a component that was installed incorrectly.
The Heathrow incident was not the only problem aboard a 787 on Friday. Thomson Airways, a charter airline, said that one of its Dreamliner planes traveling from Manchester Airport in England to Orlando-Sanford International Airport in Florida had to turn back “as a precautionary measure.”
The fire on the Ethiopian 787 forced Heathrow Airport to temporarily suspend arrivals and departures while fire crews responded to the incident at 4:36 p.m. local time. Once the fire was extinguished around 6 p.m., the runways reopened.
Friday’s incidents took place about two months after the 787 Dreamliners returned to the skies after being grounded over the battery problems. One of the new lithium-ion batteries caught fire on a 787 parked at a Boston airport on Jan. 7, and another began smoking in midflight nine days later, forcing a 787 to make an emergency landing in Japan.
Stephen Castle reported from London, and Christopher Drew from New York. Jad Mouawad contributed from New York.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/business/fire-on-boeing-787-dreamliner-at-heathrow-in-london.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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