NTSB Says Short Circuit Caused Dreamliner Fires, Points Some Blame at Boeing, FAA
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Martin_Petit/iStock/Thinkstock(BOSTON) — The National Transportation Safety Board on Monday released a report on the Jan. 7, 2013 incident involving a fire in the battery case of a Japan Airlines plane.
The fire caused the grounding of all of Boeing’s 787 “Dreamliner” jets while the agency looked into the cause of the fire. The incident in Boston was followed days later by a similar incident in Japan, at which point the fleet of 787s was grounded for about three months while the batteries were redesigned.
The fire, the NTSB says, was caused by a short circuit within the plane’s lithium-ion battery.
The agency also noted that the company that manufactured the batteries was partially responsible for allowing defects that could lead to short circuiting. The NTSB said that Boeing “failed to incorporate design requirements…to mitigate the most severe effects of a cell internal short circuit.” Additionally, the Federal Aviation Administration failed to pick up on the design vulnerability.
The Dreamliner was introduced in 2011 and was considered technologically advanced. The plane was the first airliner to make large-scale use of lithium-ion batteries.
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