787 Dreamliner, Boeing 787 Battery Fire | featured news

The Federal Aviation Administration gave formal approval on Thursday for a new lithium-ion battery system for Boeing Co's 787 Dreamliner, ending a three-month ban and clearing airlines to fly the plane with passengers again.

Boeing began installing reinforced lithium-ion batteries on five grounded 787 jets in Japan on Monday, starting a process that should make the first commercial Dreamliners ready to fly again in about a week.

The decision by the Federal Aviation Administration would allow the planes, grounded for more than three months, to return to service after the proposed repairs are made.

Federal regulators have approved a Boeing plan to redesign the 787 Dreamliner's fire-prone lithium-ion batteries, although extensive testing will be needed before the planes can fly passengers again.

A top executive will meet with agency officials on Friday to outline efforts to get the Boeing 787 back in the air.

Japan's Transport Ministry says a probe into the overheating of a lithium ion battery in an All Nippon Airways Boeing 787 found it was improperly wired.

The use of lithium ion batteries to power aircraft systems isn't necessarily unsafe despite a battery fire in one Boeing 787 Dreamliner and smoke in another, but manufacturers need to build in reliable safeguards, the nation's top aviation safety investigator said Wednesday....

An examination of the undamaged battery in the parked Boston plane found nothing out of the ordinary, the National Transportation Safety Board said. The second battery was the same design as the one that caught fire.

In 2007, U.S. regulators cleared Boeing's use of a highly flammable battery in the 787 Dreamliner, deciding it was safe to let the lithium-ion battery burn out if it caught fire mid-air as long as the flames were contained, and smoke and fumes vented properly, according to documents reviewed by Reuters.

U.S. safety investigators on Sunday ruled out excess voltage as the cause of a battery fire last month on a Boeing Co 787 Dreamliner jet operated by Japan Airlines Co (JAL) and said they were expanding the probe to look at the battery's charger and the jet's auxiliary power unit.