Reuters: 787 ETOPS threatened in resumption of service

Reuters reports that the Boeing 787’s ETOPS certification may be questionable when the FAA authorizes a return to service.

45 Comments on “Reuters: 787 ETOPS threatened in resumption of service

  1. …Boeing referred questions to the FAA. During a recent news conference in Japan, Boeing executives said there had not been any conversations with regulators about extended range operations. They said the proposed certification plan did not foresee further limitations once the plane was allowed to resume flight operations…

    Lets see . This is the same PR team that forced rollout on 7 8 7 for a PR triumph, and then followed it up with ‘ first flight in x months “- and then with flight test complete in y months – and then with a 1 in a million chance of a battery problem – and then . . .

    Seems to me a basic problem – corner office inhaled either too much battery smoke ( NO fire and NO thermal runaway ) or some of the local legal smoke em if you gotem .

    But maybe its just they live in an alternate universe – where chocolate bars reach to the stars on the big rock candy mountain ??

    IMHO- it will be a year before anything over two hours etops is allowed, if not by this country but by japan or ????

  2. Reuters:

    – “But the highly electrical nature of the 787 has raised new questions, said another former U.S. official, noting that the importance of the lithium-ion batteries for the plane’s operation made it a bigger risk factor than past batteries.”

    – “In the past, if you lost a battery, or a battery malfunctioned, it wasn’t that big of a deal,” said that former U.S. official.”

    – “But if Boeing’s battery is needed to start the engine – and that battery is susceptible to fire – isn’t that a turn back condition? Isn’t that something you have to go land at an airport to address? That’s the question.”

    I am not sure I understand what this guy is saying, but if true it is troubling.

    – “If the FAA approves (only) over-land operations it would be a very damaging blow to the 787 program,” said Scott Hamilton, an aviation analyst with Leeham Co in Seattle.”

    That is something I always feared would happen. The Dreamliner would be authorized to return to service, but with severe restrictions. If that is indeed what’s going to happen it means Boeing would have been better off attempting a complete redesign of the battery system and endure a prolong grounding in order to protect its ETOP qualifications (and its public image).

    – “A step-by-step return to full, extended flight would give regulators more time to study the effectiveness of Boeing’s battery fix, and could help the Obama administration prove that it was making good on Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s promise to ensure the plane was “1,000-percent” safe, some experts said.”

    – “It would also address concerns voiced by Japanese aviation regulatory authorities in recent weeks.”

    Yes, and that’s why I said recently that I view what Boeing calls a permanent fix as only an interim solution. Boeing might have the airplanes back in the air with restrictions until it finds a more acceptable solution for ETOP operations.

    That would imply a complete redesign of the battery system, not just an approval for a quick fix, as Boeing is presently trying to obtain from the FAA and DOT. Not to forget JCAB and MLIT. I am not sure EASA will rubber stamp everything either. Of course the NTSB and JTSB still have a word to say about all this. It’s a very complex situation.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/27/us-boeing-787-range-idUSBRE92Q00920130327?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=t.co

    • – “In the past, if you lost a battery, or a battery malfunctioned, it wasn’t that big of a deal,” said that former U.S. official.”

      – “But if Boeing’s battery is needed to start the engine – and that battery is susceptible to fire – isn’t that a turn back condition? Isn’t that something you have to go land at an airport to address? That’s the question.”

      As Boeing pointed out, the battery is not required for continued safe flight. if you are over water and lose one engine, the generators from the other engine can restart the dead unit without the APU or battery.

      If you lose both engines while over water, you can continue unpowered flight using the RAT while attempting restart by windmilling the dead engines, again without the benefit of batteries or APU if necessary.

      So the presence of batteries is not a safety of flight issue. Only the batteries burning and setting the entire aircraft on fire is the issue.

      Boeing needs to field this quick fix to return aircraft to revenue service as quickly as possible, then continue work on a redesigned battery system that includes more modern reformulated Lithium batteries that are much less suceptable to fire in the first place (such as LiFe.) Then Boeing can work to certify the changes and retrofit aircraft after certification is granted.

    • I think it may be the dreaded “unknown unknowns” Issuing ETOPS out of the box assumes all unknown unknowns have been designed out. The fires clearly demonstrate that isn’t the case. If there’s anything else lurking there, it will not be the battery next time.

  3. Don Shuper :
    But maybe its just they live in an alternate universe – where chocolate bars reach to the stars on the big rock candy mountain ??

    You don’t have to go that far. Mars offers excellent chocolate bars!

  4. This should come as no surprise to anyone, especially to Boeing. I wonder how much they were pressing the FAA to continue the current ETOPS times, or were they even still trying to push for more?
    Based on the sources mentioned in the article, it seems as if it is the Japanese regulators who might be the ones who have an issue with the ETOPS as is. If so, again, no surprise there.

  5. At this stage it’s all speculation. People must remember that way Boeing is fixing the battery issue is not limited to the Steel box.
    The steel box is there to handle the scenario where all else fails.
    In addition to increasing the space between cells,Ceramic insulation between cells and decreasing the rated charge Voltage and current, cells Quality control has been improved at manufacturing level.
    Each cell undergoes a 14hours test, something that was not there before. The battery monitoring system has been improved.
    The battery is tested in a lab enviroment where all possible known cause and mode of faillure are tested. If the battery passes all of that why still think of it as unsafe?
    If the FAA and the NTSB think that after all of those test, the system is still not good enough for ETOPS, then both agencies must be shut down because they are the ones who have set the Standard for the battery and they don’t trust their own work.
    For me the FAA credibility will not be defined by how they handle the battery issue, they should have done a good Job at the start before even certifying the plane, all the noise they will make now are just for face saving, having screwed up at the begining. They are not less guilty than Boeing.
    The french man has spoken.

    Have a good day Ladies and Gentlemen

    • People must also remember that the battery itself is not the problem. The real problem is the ghost hidden somewhere inside the electric system. That ghost killed the battery. Boeing just fixed the problems related to battery death. I didn’t hear anything about successful ghostbusters. At the moment the ghost killed this battery but what’s next? — By the way, will all batteries have that containment?

  6. Normand Hamel :
    Reuters:
    – “But the highly electrical nature of the 787 has raised new questions, said another former U.S. official, noting that the importance of the lithium-ion batteries for the plane’s operation made it a bigger risk factor than past batteries.”
    – “In the past, if you lost a battery, or a battery malfunctioned, it wasn’t that big of a deal,” said that former U.S. official.”
    – “But if Boeing’s battery is needed to start the engine – and that battery is susceptible to fire – isn’t that a turn back condition? Isn’t that something you have to go land at an airport to address? That’s the question.”
    I am not sure I understand what this guy is saying, but if true it is troubling.

    This is the main issue indeed that is being missed by most commentators and of course not addressed by Boeing.

    From what I understood, the battery is required in case of an engine shut-off (to start the apu that will provide the electricity for the engine restart), May be this is limited to a very remote double engine shut-off occurrence but yet this has to be reflected in the ETOPS certification.

    Switching to more traditional batteries would have been wiser for the long run. The Li-ion is going to stay above the 787 as a sword of Damocles.

  7. There is a general point to be made here: previous generation aircraft only qualified for higher ETOPS ratings after demonstrating exemplary reliability over many years. When the fires broke out, the FAA in their wisdom (?) were about to award the highest rating of 330 minutes to the 787 without that plane having to demonstrate anything at all. The several problems with the 787 just make that decision even more doubtful.

    The question of whether to award ETOPS without a track record applies to all new aircraft, including the upcoming A350

    • FF :
      There is a general point to be made here: previous generation aircraft only qualified for higher ETOPS ratings after demonstrating exemplary reliability over many years. When the fires broke out, the FAA in their wisdom (?) were about to award the highest rating of 330 minutes to the 787 without that plane having to demonstrate anything at all. The several problems with the 787 just make that decision even more doubtful.
      The question of whether to award ETOPS without a track record applies to all new aircraft, including the upcoming A350

      There was a trackrecord.
      http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324595704578240172467982196.html

      The Dreamliner being close to ETOPS 330, and the driving forces behind that, should be a topic of the wider FAA/ NTSB review.

      • Actually those shenanigans should have undone any ETOPS qualification. But they were carefully kept under wraps, just like the battery changes. What else ?

  8. The American legal system may be the biggest and most compelling reason why 787 may have its feathers trimmed.
    If any FAA official asks his family lawyer an opinion, he will be firmly told not to sign anything.
    The USA unfortunately has made litigation a household phrase, and no one in their right mind would leave themselves open to potential liability even at a third or fourth level.
    The ambulance chasers are probably already salivating at potential business.

    • Not all animals are equal 😉 ( see the deep water horizon oil spill and who gets the hot water session and which entities do not.)

  9. Le bon vivant :
    The battery is tested in a lab enviroment where all possible known cause and mode of faillure are tested. If the battery passes all of that why still think of it as unsafe?

    Because it is of the Lithium-Cobalt variety, the most unstable form of Li-ion. It is temperamental and unpredictable. The smallest provocation will make it go haywire. Thick stainless steel walls will not prevent gremlins and ghosts from entering that box.

    Boeing has to start thinking outside of the box.

  10. I’m satisfied that the box will contain any fire.

    I’m not satisfied that Boeing ever really solved the problem than caused in the in-flight fire and near crash of the 787 in November 2010.

    That fire was in the aft EE bay, the same place where the JAL battery fire was. But the 2010 fire started on a power panel.

    That same power panel had a problem on United 1146 in December 2012, resulting in a brief loss of electrical power and requiring an emergency landing in New Orleans (flight was on its way to Newark). The same month that panel malfunctioned on an Omani 787 delivery flight.

    Recall, a recent WSJ piece on CEO McNerney reported the company initially assumed the JAL fire was that power panel. From the article:

    ***He got on the phone with Ray Conner, his commercial-airplane head, and chief technology officer John Tracy. They suspected “foreign object debris” or the 787’s electrical panels, which had experienced two in-flight incidents in December.**

    The burning batteries are a symptom of a flawed electrical system that generates 4x as much power as a larger 777 and is simply running way too hot.

    Watch for upcoming headlines: a major 787 customer stopped using Ground Power Units on parked 787s because the planes electrical system kept frying them. While in service they had to leave the APU on at all times when the main engines were off. That incident where the GPU plugged into the 787 at Farnborough last year was not a random one-off:

    http://tinyurl.com/cynyuaa

    • .. stopped using Ground Power Units on parked 787s because the planes electrical system kept frying them ..

      First time I heard from that Farnborough cook off.
      Incompatibility had been reported before.. but not the killing vector 😉

      The exchange gift here is run down batteries and the majority of APU starts on batteries alone which seems to be a taxing load.
      I can’t imagine that the majority of ground power units are so far out of spec that they can’t supply the 787. ( Or is it the reverse ?)

  11. Normand Hamel :

    Because it is of the Lithium-Cobalt variety, the most unstable form of Li-ion. It is temperamental and unpredictable. The smallest provocation will make it go haywire. Thick stainless steel walls will not prevent gremlins and ghosts from entering that box.
    Boeing has to start thinking outside of the box.:

    Pun intended I assume 🙂

  12. DCraft :
    Watch for upcoming headlines: a major 787 customer stopped using Ground Power Units on parked 787s because the planes electrical system kept frying them. While in service they had to leave the APU on at all times when the main engines were off. That incident where the GPU plugged into the 787 at Farnborough last year was not a random one-off:
    http://tinyurl.com/cynyuaa

    If there was only one incident where a GPU caught fire it means absolutely nothing. That sort of thing can happen to any aircraft. But if there are other unreported incidents, then we need to start worrying about that. It would be easy to make a connection to what happened not only with the 2 1/2 meltdowns that grounded the fleet, but also the 100 + batteries that had to be replaced unexpectedly.

    It started with the main electrical panel and moved to the APU and Main batteries. Now it’s the aircraft GPU? All those incidents point in the same direction: the aircraft electrical system.

  13. Are there any electrical engineers out there who might be able to shed some light on possible consequences from multiplying the power in a system by something like 3x, and simultaneously changing the system ground from aluminium fuselage to metallic strands embedded in carbon fibre fuselage?

    • Apparently no one on Earth understands what’s going inside that beautiful bird. Not even the world experts. Unless some electrical engineers somewhere know and understand what is really going on, but have been told to shut up.

      I have no verifiable elements on which to base that assumption. Only the seriousness of the situation and its apprehended consequences.

    • I fit that role and imho it is at least a complete rethink on how you do things.
      Added difficulty is how do you mesh the power returns and ligthning protection. ( we had to do comparable design decission for a maglev demonstrator in Berlin in the late 80ties )
      If you tie the two system in one place only you get large voltage differences on remote stations.
      If you tie both at a range of places you get parasitic currents in the hull.
      With cables for ground returns ( not conductive structure ) you invariably have higher impedance there. All solvable problems but not in a distributed _and_ disjunct developement model.
      Then the 787 seems have a large number of switched power bus converters/interconnectors
      that introduce another round of problems. From my experience I would not have gone for a distributed ( i.e. long supply lines) HV DC Bus.

  14. Uwe :

    I can’t imagine that the majority of ground power units are so far out of spec that they can’t supply the 787. ( Or is it the reverse ?)

    That is exactly my understanding. This carrier is literally replacing/upgrading all the GPUs that will touch a 787.

    It started with the main electrical panel and moved to the APU and Main batteries. Now it’s the aircraft GPU? All those incidents point in the same direction: the aircraft electrical system.

    Couldn’t have said it better myself. I think the flawed electrical system is obvious, but the company has done a good job of focusing attention on “batteries.” They own the FAA, but the NTSB seems more willing to challenge the company.

    This program will be a disaster for the company for decades. They don’t have a credible product in the 200-400 seat category. Stopped upgrading the 767 a decade ago and the replacement is a lemon. Meanwhile the A330 is still a young plane from an upgrade standpoint, and the A350-800 can sweep the category if delivered on spec.

    High stakes game we have here. A redesign of the 787 electrical system would take >1yr. In the mean time Boeing is sitting on $20B of 787 inventory and will owe billion$ is penalties to both customers and suppliers. No one wants this – no regulator wants to make the call, no carrier wants to rock the boat, no Boeing exec wants a disruption before mandatory retirement (August 2014 for the CEO), no aerospace journalist or Wall Street analyst wants to risk damaging their relationship with the Boeing PR dept. What will it take? Hopefully not a serious incident.

  15. Picture a power plant capable of powering 1000-1500 average American homes. That’s what the 787 is, that’s how much electrical power this baby in generating. And it needs every drop – electric breaks, electric cabin heating, electric wing de-icing, electric flight controls…

    Now cram that power plant into a little tube and fly it all over the world with servicing in locations like Bole International Airport in Ethiopia.

    Care to climb on board for a flight above the Arctic Circle? Me neither.

  16. Speaking of Ground Power Units, here’s a blast from the past:

    http://paineairport.com/kpae4017.htm

    Alas, the now familiar sight of a 787 surrounded by smoke and fire trucks. The caption says “generator smoke” – looks like another GPU fire to me.

    Thus:
    – November 9, 2010: 787 in-flight power panel fire – plane nearly crashes
    – July 27, 2011: GPU plugged into 787 catches fire in Everett
    – July 11, 2012: GPU plugged into 787 catches fire at Farnborough Air Show
    – January 7, 2013: 787 Aft Battery catches fire at Logan, takes fire dept >1hr to extinguish
    – January 16, 2013: 787 Forward Battery catches fire in flight – emergency landing at Takamatsu

    Power Panels, Batteries, GPUs – too bad we don’t have some government agency or journalistic institution that could look into this.

  17. Uwe :
    Added difficulty is how do you mesh the power returns and ligthning protection. ( we had to do comparable design decission for a maglev demonstrator in Berlin in the late 80ties ) If you tie the two system in one place only you get large voltage differences on remote stations. If you tie both at a range of places you get parasitic currents in the hull. With cables for ground returns ( not conductive structure ) you invariably have higher impedance there.

    It reminds me that the electrical wiring had to be completely reworked on the initial 787 production batch in order to satisfy a request from the FAA. I never had the details of that, but I am wondering if it has anything to do with what you say here Uwe.

    That would be one more element to add to the list:

    1- Rework of the wiring to satisfy an FAA request.
    2- Main electrical panel fire(s).
    3- Multiple replacements of aircraft batteries.
    4- APU and Main battery fire(s).
    5- GPU fire(s).

    • For the GE hung Dreamliners they had to significantly work on the ligthning protection
      ( alone or in conjunction with engine and generator electrics ?) for the engine/pylon/wing interface. ( at least that is what was at the time given as reason for the GE cert. delay )

      • As I remember it the rework was labour-intensive and time-consuming. Therefore I concluded that it had to do with the entire aircraft. And I don’t recall anything about the engine. Unless we are talking about two separate issues.

      • winter 2011.. spring 2012, the delayed cert for the GENX 787.
        afair on top of the regular reworks the wing/pylon/engine interface needed further improvement ( different from the Trent ) Well, Boeings words at the time and we now know that Boeing is creativly ambiguous in their announcements.

  18. Davenport :
    Thanks Uwe. And what would cause a GPU to get fried?

    No idea. The Dreamliner is an opaque block in that respect.

    But it must be a use case that sidesteps the GPU internal safeties
    as those should trip before the unit goes up in smoke.
    ( which would be “in taste”, the batteries seem to die from abuse too )

  19. It is obvious both the NTSB and the JTSB are investigating beyond the battery issue, which could prove to be a symptom and not a cause. A limited ETOPS qualification would indicate the FAA is on the same page, addressing the whole electrical system reliability and not just one specific component’s failure, especially when no “root cause” has been isolated to date. Whatever happens, the 787 will be scrutinized when service resumes. The battery “tank” fix might well address the direct safety issues (or at least the symptoms) experienced on the ANA and JAL planes. But any new electrical failure would ruin the plane’s credibility. Let’s hope Boeing’s confidence is genuine. Because a flawed electrical architecture would be a massive problem, not the kind of thing you could solve by putting the whole thing in a titanium Tupperware. It would destroy the concept of the plane itself, the one used to successfully promote it as a “game-changer”.

  20. Mermoz :
    But any new electrical failure would ruin the plane’s credibility.

    Boeing is playing with fire. Literally.

    • Would Yuasa propagating this info to Boeing indicate that this is the same
      type of cell and chemstry ?

  21. Mermoz :
    It is obvious both the NTSB and the JTSB are investigating beyond the battery issue, which could prove to be a symptom and not a cause.

    I think the question whether the battery itself formed up a cause already got answered. By Boeing. They don’t know the cause and just enhanced all the possible sources of error from their viewpoint. An effort which is reasonable (though not exactly elegant) but we may agree that the two agencies you’ve mentioned currently seem to be the only ones not sticking to the PR spin and (therefore?) receiving a bit less attention and media coverage. Q.e.d.

    This shouldn’t be read the wrong way (conspiracy), but I think that quite some observers do in fact wonder why, in that business where ‘safety is a top priority’, the talks about ‘it wasn’t actually a fire’ and the surrounding pressure (please no Congress hearings, NTSB “sidelining”) are as successful as they are.

    And I think the next question would be how even the most minor battery/elec sys related incident with a flying 787 and with an approved ‘fix’ would affect not only the Boeing image but also the one of the agencies in charge. As much as I acknowledge the role of the FAA being right in between the public and the folks trying to sell a lot of planes and tickets, there’s some trust to be lost when the company’s PR and media pressure generated turn your role into the one who gets driven. It should be the other way around. We may agree on that.

    I have to thank for the coverage on the ETOPS topic. I must admit that I was surprised that it’s just threatened. I would have thought that it ‘automatically’ reverts back to very basic levels after what happened. ‘1,000-percent’ safe, you know.

  22. cant help but wonder re the groundpower units problems. Since the plane is NOT in the air, there would be an argument that it does not need to be reported to various agencies, etc

    Thus the minimum publicity.

    But IMO it does point towards a lack of ‘ commercial’ timing short flight and turnaround testing before putting into service.

    It could get interesting IF ETOPS is pulled for a while, and airlines use 787 for ‘ relatively short” hops and short turnaround times. This could put max stress on groundpower- recharge- apu start activities and possibly surface a few more ‘ gotchas’

    and drive the power point rangers and PR teams nuts

    • Any not immediately obvious damage done in connection with a Ground Power Unit can still
      expose itself in flight. I have doubts this “only in flight” differentiation is valid.

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