Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- Airbus books 148 firm orders as Boeing retracts from the Paris Air Show June 19, 2025
- AIN Media Group Agrees to Acquire Leeham News & Analysis June 17, 2025
- Five for Five: Air India crash points to systemic problems at Boeing that CEO Ortberg must fix June 15, 2025
- Airbus sees Boeing as medium-term competitor, with Comac next June 14, 2025
- Boeing bullish on 20-year forecast, despite short-term headwinds June 14, 2025
Odds and Ends: ICAO says no to lithium batteries;Dendrites and the 787; Deleting Flightblogger
ICAO says no to lithium-ion batteries: The UN organization ICAO apparently will reverse itself and say that lithium-ion batteries should not be shipped as cargo on passenger airliners. This seems like a prudent move, considering the history of fires involving this battery type, even before the Boeing 787 incidents.
Dendrites and the 787: It sounds like something out of your biology class. Microscopic things called Dendrites might be the root cause of the lithium-ion battery fires on the 787, according to the first reporting from The Wall Street Journal. (Subscription required. Here is a Reuters story on the same topic.)
Deleting Flightblogger: Alas, we deleted Flightblogger from our bookmarks. Jon Ostrower created this blog and built it into a major aviation resource. When he departed Flight International for The Wall Street Journal, Flight half-heartedly (if that) continued the column, but there hasn’t been an entry since August.
Rolls-Royce Certifies Trent XWB: Rolls-Royce received certification for the Trent XWB, which will be used for the Airbus A350.
Airbus still ponders battery future: Airbus is still considering what to do about the plans to use the lithium-ion battery in the A350. A Seattle TV station reported Airbus made the decision to drop these batteries in favor of older, proven technology. Airbus told us this isn’t so (yet). Says a spokesman:
We are following the 787 investigation closely and will evaluate whether any recommendation applies to us.
We have a robust design. If this design has to evolve, we have the time to do that before first delivery.
Nothing prevents us from going back to a classical plan that we have been studying in parallel.
We have all options open, which we keep evaluating in pace with the ongoing investigation.
Analysis of 787 situation ahead of NTSB briefing
Note: The National Transportation Safety Board will brief the media today at 11am ET. We will have a live update on this blog.
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The flurry of news late yesterday for the Boeing 787, its grounding, a ferry flight, potential interim actions and fixes to get the airplane back in the air, and comments from the NTSB chairperson all combine to suggest to us–and to others–that Boeing indeed is making good progress.
Although Deborah Hersman, chair of the federal investigatory agency, said it will be weeks before definitive answers are forthcoming about the cause of the Japan Air Lines battery fire and the ANA battery thermal runaway, this was immediately seen as a positive development. “Weeks” instead of “months” is the key take-away from this.
Hersman went on to say that she would not “categorically” call the lithium ion battery “unsafe,” but that risks posed by the technology had to be properly “mitigated.” This is a very important statement.
Odds and Ends: FAA outsourced to Boeing; responding to fires-land within 15 minutes
Update, 4:15pm: From Twitter–Glenn Farley is the aviation specialist for KING 5 TV, Seattle:
Looks like Boeing test airplane ZA005 is being readied to carry out battery related test flights. Lots of activity
Original Post:
FAA Outsourced to Boeing: The Seattle Times has a story about how the FAA outsourced certification work to Boeing. Coming from The Times’ Washington bureau, the story notes that “few people” realize this happened. For those of us who follow the industry, this is not new. We also wrote about this shortly after the FAA announced a program review. As our post notes, the FAA’s reliance on OEM representatives has been happening since the agency was formed and by its predecessor.
Responding to fires: Airbus, at its annual safety conference in March 2012, noted that fires can get out of control in as little at eight minutes and aircraft may have as little as 15 minutes to make an emergency landing. These conclusions were unrelated to lithium ion batteries, but referenced fires generally. All we can say is, Holy smokes! Airbus Smoke and Fire Analysis
Odds and Ends: Airbus’ frustration over A350 fallout–blame yourself; DC-10 grounding retrospective
Airbus’ frustration: Airbus says it has a Plan B for its lithium ion battery design and the CEO says he’s frustrated over the attention the A350 is getting as a result of the Boeing 787 issues.
Airbus has only itself to blame for any frustration: it’s stonewalling all questions about the design and fire protections of its lithium-ion batteries. The absence of answers from Airbus leads to the conclusions that it doesn’t have fire suppression as it’s commonly thought of.
Boeing remarked after the JAL fire that thermal runaway can’t be suppressed with in-flight fire fighting techniques. The presentation we detailed from Airbus makes it clear Airbus has the same conclusion. Although Halon can be used to suppress small fires, a thermal runaway can only be suppressed by water, and plenty of it. It took firefighters more than an hour to put out the blaze on the JAL airplane, according to the NTSB timeline.
The Airbus slides suggest there is Halon designed into the A350 and we are told the design has venting that the Boeing design does not. But Airbus won’t say what its design is. Does it take the containment approach The Seattle Times wrote about in connection with Cessna? Airbus won’t say. But we know from a well-placed source that venting overboard is part of the Airbus design.
See KING 5’s report below-Boeing is working on its own Plan B.
“We have a robust design,” Reuters quotes Airbus CEO Fabrice Bregier. “I’m not going to give any lessons to Boeing. At the same time, I don’t have to take any either, when I think we have done well and have a plan which allows me to have aircraft flying with batteries that don’t catch fire,” he said, according to Reuters.
We find this second statement to be a load of crap. Where safety begins, rivalry should end. For the good of the industry, Airbus ought to share its thoughts with Boeing. The rivalry perpetrated between the two companies is often childish (both sides are guilty of this) and unworthy of two world-class companies. We find the statement above to be appalling.
Airbus has told us its battery-from a different supplier than that of Boeing’s-meets FAA standards, something that weren’t in place when Boeing selected the lithium-ion batteries in 2007. The FAA issued Special Conditions for Boeing’s use of the new technology batteries.
Aviation writer Christine Negroni has a post that expresses a great deal of frustration with Boeing’s corporate attitude toward the lithium ion issue. Frustration seems to be catching. But Airbus has the opportunity here to take the high road for safety and share its approach with Boeing–and to assure the aviation world publicly that its airplane will be safe.
Bregier says his design is safe and there’s a Plan B if regulators say more is needed. Tell us what is safe about the design and tell us what Plan B is.
Meanwhile, KING 5 (NBC-Seattle) has further information on Boeing’s Plan B, which is to build a containment box around the battery (similar to the Cessna approach).
DC-10 Grounding: The last time the FAA grounded a commercial airliner was in 1979, when American Airlines lost a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-10 at Chicago O’Hare International Airport. Aviation Week linked its report at the time and we link this article here.
Space Shuttle: The Seattle Times has a story about the space shuttle Columbia, which broke apart 10 years ago. It’s interesting reading.
Airbus examines lithium battery safety, fire suppression
Note: The NTSB Sunday said it still doesn’t know what caused the lithium ion battery to catch fire on the JAL Boeing 787.
Japan has shifted focus to a monitoring system, not the battery. The battery charger has been cleared by the NTSB.
Japan eased safety standards ahead of service, according to a news report.
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Airbus officials are trying to keep a low profile during the focus on Boeing’s 787 lithium ion battery problems, but since the A350 XWB will also have this battery type, Airbus gets pulled into the story whether it wants to or not.
Airbus officials are concerned whatever the US Federal Aviation Administration decides is ultimately necessary for Boeing to fix the lithium ion problems and restore the 787 to service, it might have a knock-on effect to certifying the A350.
There are several issues: fire prevention; fire suppression; battery safety; risks and so on.
Although Airbus responded to some questions at its annual press conference, and has selectively talked about the Boeing situation since, it’s declined useful comment on some specific questions, notably about fire suppression.
Odds and Ends: NTSB on 787 Certification; SPEEA countdown
NTSB on 787 Certification: There were a number of small but important news items to come out of the press briefing Thursday from the National Transportation Safety Board were several references to examining the certification involving the batteries of the Boeing 787.
The Federal Aviation Administration previously announced a full 787 program review about the design, production and systems.We’ve already opined about whether the FAA, Boeing and the suppliers can objectively review their own work.
Congress has already said it will hold hearings, a move for which we hold general disdain.
In our coverage yesterday, we had this paraphrased statement by the NTSB chairman:
We are looking at certification standards, whether they were adhered to and whether they were appropriate. What we have seen in these two events do not comport with any design to protect against the battery events. Those systems did not work as intended. We need to understand why.
But we welcome the NTSB certification review. The independent NTSB, staffed by professional investigators, is far more able to assess the work of the FAA and Boeing than is Congress.
There have been many articles that suggest the entire 787 process was a “rush.” Certainly the original time frame–four years from launch to supposed EIS–was unrealistic. But with nearly four years of delays, we’d be hard-pressed to say the program was “rushed.”
There are those who say Boeing believes the grounding was unwarranted. Gordon Bethune, a former Boeing executive and former CEO of Continental Airlines, was blunt in his view that the FAA over-reacted.
We disagree.
NTSB briefing on 787 today
The National Transportation Board will have a briefing today at 2:30 ET. In advance of the briefing, NTSB issued this terse statement:
The following factual information has been developed about the battery: It consists of eight cells of 3.7 volts each. All eight cells had varying degrees of thermal damage. Six of eight cells have been CT scanned and have been disassembled to expose their electrodes. All electrode windings in the battery are in the process of being photo-documented and are undergoing microscopic examination. In the coming days, the remaining two cells will undergo the same examination. Additional information will be provided tomorrow.
Meanwhile, The Seattle Times has this story about the battery system.
The Wall Street Journal has this story about Boeing’s innovation for the 787.
Reflections of a whirl-wind week in the news cycle
This is one of those moments where jet-lag induced sleep patterns give us a moment to catch our breath.
What a week it’s been in the news cycle. We came to Europe on routine business and from the moment we stepped off the plane in Amsterdam for a connecting flight, our Blackberry was filled with emails about the ANA 787 incident. Less than 24 hours later, the 787s were grounded, the SPEEA contract negotiations were reaching a climax and Airbus was holding its annual review press conference.
And our trip is only half over.
787 Updates
The Wall Street Journal has an excellent article focusing on the battery approval by the FAA and its reliance on Boeing in granting approval. Subscription is required. The article speaks to the very point we made in our previous post about the FAA’s reliance on OEMs and suppliers generally and for the 787 specifically. Unaddressed in The Journal article is our point about the FAA review of the entire 787 program and the continued reliance on Boeing and suppliers for research. This remains an unanswered question.
The Seattle Times has this article that reports some of the same ground as The Journal, outlining Boeing’s fevered effort to get the airplanes in the air soon. The Times reports the grounding extends even to the 787s awaiting test flights in advance of deliveries.
The International Herald Tribune has this story about the lithium battery and this detailed story about the grounding, including discussion of the fire control of the 787 electronics bay. Finally, IHT has this technical discussion of lithium ion batteries.
Our own inquiry suggests Boeing hopes to have the airplanes airborne within days.There is a definitive proposal before the FAA.
Boeing designed triple and quadruple redundancy to prevent conditions that would cause a fire or leakage, we are told. The systems themselves are believed to have not failed, but the investigation is incomplete. This suggests that the fault may well be with the batteries themselves, as The Seattle Times and Bloomberg News have now reported. It remains unclear if there are simply defective battery issues or if there is a systemic battery production issue or there are other issues.
Reuters has this story with quotes from the battery maker. Noteworthy is the company response that the battery is but part of a system. The person says the probe involves the entire system, not just the battery. The article also has the cost per day to ANA for the grounding.
At Airbus, the mood was stoic. Sensitive to perceptions over the intense, often bitter rivalry with Boeing and the knowledge that what happens to Boeing could in similar form happen to Airbus (see A380 problems), nobody at Airbus was anything but empathetic. CEO Fabrice Breigier expressed sincere hope for Boeing’s plight and efforts to return the 787 to service, and this reflected universal sentiment.
Reporters naturally asked about the use of lithium batteries on the A350 and reaction to their use on the 787.
Airbus officials, without any hint of criticism over Boeing’s choice of an all-electric airplane, simply explained the differing philosophies that led to Airbus’ conclusion to retain more tradition methods of powering the A350: hydraulics and pneumatics. The benefits of all-electric didn’t offset the risks and costs enough to go this route, officials said. The result is that the A350 actually draws less power from batteries than the A330 because of design efficiencies, they said. Further, the Auxiliary Power Unit on the A350 is started by two batteries splitting the load versus one battery on the 787 carrying all the load.
SPEEA-Boeing
See our post on this topic. Not a lot more to add.
The Everett Herald has this story.
Airbus annual press conference
Setting aside the drama of the 787, this was pretty routine stuff. Airbus trailed Boeing last year in deliveries and orders, as expected, but it still bested its own forecast for orders by 50%. Had 2011 not been boosted by the plethora of A320neo orders, booking 900 gross orders last year would have been viewed favorably by anyone. But the year-over-year comparison showed a 43% decline and the ever-eubillent John Leahy was driven crazy by media headlines pointing out this YOY decline. In an after-conference press gaggle, he ribbed Reuters’ Tim Hepher in a good natured manner over the Reuters focus on YOY stats, but his frustration was evident for all to see.
Boeing’s 2012 orders were boosted by its comeback with the 737 MAX. Now that the surge of orders for both companies is over, it will be interesting to see how a normalized year shapes up. Airbus has a sales goal of 700. Boeing will likely be asked about its sales goal during the year-end earnings call at the end of this month.
Totally off topic
The new American Airlines logo is creative. The tail treatment sucks. Maybe US Airway will fix that. Leave it to AA management to screw up the rebrand.
In the What-is-he-thinking category, Lance Armstrong shudda kept his mouth shut.