FAA grounds Boeing's 787 after battery fires on plastic planes
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has grounded all Boeing 787 Dreamliners over fears that its lithium-ion batteries are unsafe, after they were linked to two aircraft fires in the space of ten days. "The battery failures resulted in release of flammable electrolytes, heat damage, and smoke on two Model 787 airplanes …
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Re: Not for flight
"The article is poorly written and suggests to the reader that the battery pack might burst into flames while the plane is flying. That's not very likely."
Maybe you should watch this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21038307
Re: Not for flight
I assume the APU batteries are recharged at some point, possibly during flight. Maybe a failure in the charging/sensor system?
"The electronics compartment just has a smoke detector"
That is the worrying part given how much these beasts rely on electronics. Surely a fire suppression system in the critical bays is essential?
Re: Not for flight
"The article is poorly written and suggests to the reader that the battery pack might burst into flames while the plane is flying. That's not very likely."
perhaps you should watch something like this too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG_UuPmLO1c
Re: Not for flight
MachDiamond, thank you for clarifying that mystifying remark in the article about the APU. To me it sounds like the author thinks the battery itself is the APU (which of course is not the case: an APU is a small jet engine used as an electrical generator while on the ground, and away from the gates and/or where external supply systems are not available).
And to those smartarses who have downvoted this chap's comment... it might just help you to know that I, as another aviation professional, have understood exactly what he meant and he's right on the money. In more pedestrian terms, he's saying: "People who have designed this, which by the way is what they do for a living, actually know what they're doing. They may sometimes get it wrong, but not in any of the simplistic ways that ring so obvious to you and cause you to blurt out Youtubean comments. This article did not do a good job of explaining any of that, due to the complexity of the subject and the author's lack of sufficient knowledge in this domain [which is excusable, if I may add]".
I hope this helps.
Re: Not for flight
So you are now posting AC, Mr $hill ?
Re: Not for flight
"So you are now posting AC, Mr $hill ?"
Not sure if this refers to the post just above, which I wrote. All my posts in this site are as AC.
Re: Not for flight
"...might burst into flames while the plane is flying. That's not very likely"
Hmm - "not very likely" is a bit weak - myself I would be looking for words and phrases like "inconceivable", "statistically insignificant probability"
Re: Not for flight
I, as another aviation professional, have understood exactly what he meant and he's right on the money.
Except that he isn't. He stated :
suggests to the reader that the battery pack might burst into flames while the plane is flying. That's not very likely
...When there is ample evidence of exactly that happening. That's why the aircraft are grounded.
Vic.
You forget the 2009 Hudson River crash
Granted, it was not open ocean. But. it validates the safety card design, and that's the important thing.
Re: You forget the 2009 Hudson River crash
The real worry is that that is the one and only time ever in history that someone has successfully water-landed a jet aircraft with its engines under the wings.
And that was on the relative calm of the Hudson River and within about a minute of the first rescue boat, not on the open ocean - with waves even - and hours or days from rescue
Re: You forget the 2009 Hudson River crash
Granted, it was not open ocean. But. it validates the safety card design, and that's the important thing.
I thought someone might bring this up. The article specifically said "ocean", so this doesn't really count.
Also, it's not really a validation of the safety card if an ocean crash doesn't happen like this. Oceans have swells, waves, etc that make them almost impossible to pull off a high-speed landing on. Rivers don't really have this issue.
Re: You forget the 2009 Hudson River crash
To be fair, I can't think of an occasion where anyone's actually tried. I.e. an accident in which full control of the aircraft was maintained and a water landing in an ocean was attempted.
All the ones I can think of where an aircraft has ended up in the drink have been of the falling into it rather than landing on it type.
There was that hijacked african job that sort of made an attempt, but the pilot made a complete horlicks of it and was still banking when he ran out of sky. Coming in so that the first thing that hits the floor is a wing doesn't work well on land either.
Many military aircraft have ditched into the sea (sometime deliberately so, such as the CAM ship Hurricanes of the North Atlantic convoys) and the crew have subsequently been recovered safely.
Re: You forget the 2009 Hudson River crash
The hijackers were fighting with the pilots when the plane crashed. The accusation that the aircrew made a " complete horlicks" is rather unfair.
Re: You forget the 2009 Hudson River crash
> I can't think of an occasion where anyone's actually tried. I.e. an accident in which full control of the aircraft was maintained and a water landing in an ocean was attempted.
Hard to think of a reason why anyone would try it if they still had full control, though, unless they were in a Short's Sunderland or something like it.
Re: You forget the 2009 Hudson River crash
Full control means the control surfaces work as intended. What you may not have is enough thrust to maintain flight (as in if, for example, you missed the sign that said "last fuel stop this side of the Atlantic").
Re: You forget the 2009 Hudson River crash
Some of the Dolittle raid pilots ditched
The fasten seat belts light has been switched on
Please fasten your belt low and tight, return your tray to the upright position, turn off any electronic devices and extinguish all batteries.
An eco-friendly solution
The solution is simple. Remove the batteries and install treadmills in cattle class so that he swine can earn their cheap flights by generating some electricity.
For an additional fee of, say, £200, business class passengers can crack the whip down in cattle class for 15 minutes, encouraging the worker classes to be more productive and vent a little steam over their disease-ridden degenerated ramblings about corporate tax avoidance and bonuses.
It's a win-win for all.
Re: An eco-friendly solution
"...cattle class so that (t)he swine ..."
Ad hoc mixed metaphors are not certified for use in flight.
Re: An eco-friendly solution
"For an additional fee of, say, £200, business class passengers can crack the whip down in cattle class for 15 minutes"
Hear that scratching noise? it's Michael O'Leary making notes.
It's the one still going round the luggage carousel at RAF Stansted Mountfitchet London Stansted Airport.
Re. An eco friendly solution
You sir, owe me a new keyboard!!
Also, why the hell are they even using Li-Ion batteries, when phosphates are actually slightly cheaper and *proven* non flammable.
Even NASA refuses to use Li-ion cells on satellites, preferring to use good old reliable Ni-H2 or Ni-MH as they have cycle life in the tens of thousands if well looked after.
Also they are very tolerant of overcharging/overdischarge as long as the cells can't reverse.
Re: Re. An eco friendly solution
Ni-MH reliable?
Granted, better than NiCd, but Li-ion has been a big improvement.
LiFeP04
would have been a safer choice at a minor loss of capacity...
Amazed they never thought of this....
Company that builds aircraft to ferry millions of bods accross the planet but has no idea about safe(r) battery technology....
Top Fuel Dragster
Why not have failsafe measures.....
Maybe they could put in some "vent with flame" exhaust tubes for the Li-Ion batts, I suggest short chromed ones, angled upwards and rearwards at a jaunty angle? ;)
Re: Top Fuel Dragster
and maybe some marshmallows and sticks
"teething problems, like cracked windows or leaking fuel"
Teething problems? I would call cracked windows on a pressurised aircraft a damn major problem! same goes for fuel... surely these issues should have been found during the extensive trials before they started delivering?
I will be avoiding Dreamliners on all future flights.
Next time you're taxiing towards the runway on a fully-laden aircraft (non-Dreamliner of course, since you will be avoiding them), you may want to take a close look at the fuel vents, see how much it can spill out of it (especially during turns as the fuel is sloshing around). It is pretty impressive but perfectly normal.
Fake batteries ?
Almost every Li-On battery for my phone that I see for sale has a Nokia logo on it but is, suspiciously, a tenth of the price that Nokia's retailers charge.
I am no engineer but can they not design the batteries to be encased in a vacuum so even if they fail they have no chance of catching fire?
The problem in this case...
...would be that the contents of the Li-Ion batteries used is rather aggressive and quite capable of doing serious damage both thermal and chemical without the presence of atmospheric oxygen. A vacuum might actually be counter-productive; some of the documented failures of Li-Ion batteries that had been transported aboard airplanes had at least in part been due to reduced pressure in the cargo compartment they were in.
I sort of wish Boeing luck with this, but from the viewpoint of a chemical engineer (diploma is framed and hanging above my toilet cistern, in case I run out of paper), I guess they'll have to bite the bullet and go for different battery technology (i.e., heavier batteries, reducing the gas mileage so to speak) less prone to spontaneous combustion.
Correct, you're no engineer
Even if that were possible (it isn't), it wouldn't extinguish the fire.
LiCo battery fires are the components of the battery burning each other - it's a sealed unit, nothing actually gets in until the the cell has already "vented with flame".
I've also seen this with NiCad batteries - less dramatic, those just smoked rather than actual visible flames.
Also, this is most likely to occur when the batteries are charging - thus either in flight (charging from engines) or connected to ground power (thus empty on stand)
One of those is rather serious(!)
I am also surprised at the choice of chemistry - manganese or iron lithium batteries are only slightly less capacious and are considerably safer than the LiCo.
Given the wording of the FAA request, that may be what happens.
Doesn't matter with some Lithium packs, oxygen is created by the chemicals that make up the pack so they'll still burn, even in a vacuum.
LiPo batteries for example will still burn underwater, so there's no way of putting them out, you just have to let them burn themselves out.
Re: The problem in this case...
Maybe they could have a suppressive agent wrapped around the battery pack. Something that would be the chemical equivalent of dumping boron into a nuclear reactor. If the battery gets too hot and melts, it melts into the carefully selected agent that calms it all down. Hopefully they don't require the battery to restart at that point. Maybe there should be a primary cell backup.
Certification authorities are no longer engineering experts. Nor are PHBs.
"one can't help thinking that the con's of this idea may not have been considered quite as far as the pro's were.."
The cons were almost certainly considered, at least by the relevant engineers. But the strategy had been decided by the PHBs.
Questions, let alone dissent, are not welcome at that stage, and have a tendency to put an engineer's income continuity plan at risk
Actually given the amount of subcontracting in the 787 it's not even obvious that there were any "relevant engineers" inside Boeing to consider the cons in this case. But let's give them the benefit of the doubt.
The regulatory authorities are not engineering experts, my experience is that all they care about in recent years is that there is a documented engineering process and that there is evidence the process was followed (ISO9000 style?). The end product can be carp (so long as no one notices) but if the process is shown to be followed it gets regulatory approval. There are even ways and means of getting stuff flying that hasn't been tested, so long as The Process has been followed (MachDiamond please note). What happens when something goes wrong? What happens is what we see here.
The UK rail industry has seen what happens to safety when you subcontract everything to the lowest bidder.
Is it Ford Pinto time for the 787?
Re: Certification authorities are no longer engineering experts. Nor are PHBs.
a quick search at ANSI shows "ISO ICS 49 AIRCRAFT AND SPACE VEHICLE ENGINEERING" as a category listing 530 standards.
I suspect many standards have content that is aligned with ISO9001 but my expertise is only in ISO17025 (requirements for technical competence in testing and calibration) which is a standard that requires one to demonstrate that everything you do is not only according to the manual but has sound technical reasoning underlying it.
Re: Certification authorities are no longer engineering experts. Nor are PHBs.
should have added that a lab is "Accreditated" to ISO 17025 not "certified"
the difference appears to lie in "formal, third party recognition of competence to perform specific tasks"
Re: Certification authorities are no longer engineering experts. Nor are PHBs.
AC 10:08 again here, 2nd attempt (irritating typos in deleted version).
Calibration is about as objective and quantifiable as you can get.
On the other hand, what objective and quantifiable certifications and quality measures are there for software? Or for complex IC (ASIC) design ? Please don't suggest DO178 or DO254; in reality these days they're about as useful as ISO9000 (they're about *process* not *product*).
In between come things like modern technologies for composite (fibre) structures, unproven (well, proven high-risk) battery technologies, and so on.
It'd be nice if everything involved in certifying a plane was as objective (and demonstrably so) as calibration.
It isn't.
Interesting times ahead.
In-vehicle software (cars etc) has similar challenges.
Re: Certification authorities are no longer engineering experts. Nor are PHBs.
This link is to an Australian aviation reporter who is not known for pulling punches.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2013/01/19/dreamliner-787-battery-fires-burn-faa-and-media-too/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CrikeyBlogs%2Fplanetalking+%28Plane+Talking%29
It leaves neither Boeing nor the FAA looking too clean.
Regrettably it has a link within the article to the Wall Street Journal - a publication that is behind one of the Dirty Digger's paywalls.
Re: Certification authorities are no longer engineering experts. Nor are PHBs.
Nice article from Crikey (and from the WSJ) there, thanks.
When I followed the WSJ link, it was available to me, not sure why (the Dirty Digger isn't on my pay-money-to list).
Small Issue
The press is overhyping this issue. The Internet is demonstrating its singular ability to spread FUD without understanding the safety net that makes air travel the safest mode of transport available.
Anytime there is a completely new aircraft there are hundreds if not thousands of potentially catastrophic issues that are corrected after the craft has entered service. At the end of the day you get either a three or four decade old plane with millions of parts that is invisibly suffering from fatigue or a new plane that won't be sorted until it is already getting old.
The upshot is that now is a good time to buy Boeing stock as the issues will get sorted & the FUD articles continue to have a negative impact on their price as unknowledgeable people sell off.
Re: Small Issue - a small correction
"The upshot is that now is a good time to buy Boeing stock as the issues will get shorted"
There! ;-)
Not a big deal IMO
Lithium ion battery issues are known. Just fix the batteries and get on with life. BTW, aluminum burns and melts also...
Interesting: Boeing $hills like "MachDiamond"
The interesting thing about this kind of $hill is that they have quite a bit of commenting history generated to look "proper". Now this $hill claims he has done battery systems for some sort of rockets avionics and suggests a "fire suppression system" to be installed for the 787 battery system.
Funny thing is, our creator, the flying spaghetti monster, also created chemistry and made some chemical reactions work WITHOUT GASEOUS OXYGEN. He even designed some reactions to work fully without oxygen ! Think that ! So some Battery types can burn even in outer space, if improperly treated or if our holy creator, the FSM, decides to spontaneously burn them. All the necessary stuff for the reactions are already in the battery.
The only safe way to handle a large, burning high-capacity battery of this type would indeed be to drop it like military planes drop stuff. Immediately when temperature exceeds safe limits. The PHBs at Boeing/Thales won't allow this, so they "compromised" on steel encasings, apparently.
But, always interesting to see Bursteller-Marston in action. Or was it XE Services ?
http://www.marstonpr.com/about.html
Re: Interesting: Boeing $hills like "MachDiamond"
I have to add that all "fire suppression" systems basically work by either removing oxygen, being anti-catalytic or lowering temperature to a point where reaction stops.
The only problem being that the "fire" is INSIDE the battery. All these listed options don't work under that that premise. Removing oxygen won't help, as it is nit needed. Anti-catalytic stuff cannot be injected into solids. Lowering temperature normally works using water. But Li and H20 would result in an even bigger fire.
And before you call me an Airbus $hill, I did blast Rollys-Royce when they tried to crash that A380 and nearly killed hundreds of passengers. Capital punishment would have been appropriate for the then RR CEO.
Idea... not novel, but still...
Why did Boeing NOT design the battery bay rack to be on a self-sacrificing rail system? Surely, they know the batteries of this type that burn would produce their own oxygen. So, once on fire, they would probably run through their casings. The flame would then burn hold-back clips meant to be sacrificed in the event of fire. The burning unit would drop out, down a chute guiding it out of the plane.
But, that idea definitely involves even MORE engineering -- either the skin of the fuselage has to be able to break away without tearing adjacent paneling, or a chute has to have a tube opening like the APU does in the tail.
The problem with a chemical suppressant is it might not work fully, or it might add an unacceptable weight penalty. With tthe burn-jettison-self manner, no explosives or ejection systems are needed, so long as gravity is on the side of the self-sacrificing racks and hold-back ties.
QUICK! Somebody patent a design and hold it over Boeing's head. Rememer me, please! I'd be happy to receive just US $30,000. Either Boeing will buy the patent, make their own, or ditch the battery type until it is made safer. Oh, and passengers will pay a few dollars extra for the privilege of having safer, but heavier (HOW MUCH HEAVIER???) batteries.
Re: Idea... not novel, but still...
So you're perfectly happy to have a large burning Li battery parachute through your roof, are you?
You might also want to do a little research into the legalities of dropping items from aircraft other than in times of conflict. The Great Unwashed don't take kindly to it.
Re: Idea... not novel, but still...
So, due to someone's lack of imagination, I took a -1 hit on a probability of the battery landing on a roof, not a certainty? If the battery stays IN the plane and fully consumes itself, it could cause (I presume cause or contribute to) structural failure that might lead to lost of control or stability -- depending on where the fire is, what control lines or data lines run by it, and the like. I want to assume that at least one of the batteries would be low enough to burn and fall out (but I am already perilously assuming much as it is), although the engine APU battery might be back in the tail. I dunno. Maybe someone would be kind enough to provide a graphic? I could help straighten me out and aid others, too.
The idea is just the start (and, for all we know, Boeing may have run 3500 location permutation calculations and only accepted what is what is going wrong now).
-- Sacrificial cage falls
-- Cage-mounted Internal GPS takes over (if not burned up yet)
-- Burning cage is vectored away from likely populated areas by vanes
-- Cage Plumets down on projected course, again, assuming the cage is not fully burned up taking the control surfaces with it...
Variation on the theme:
-- Cage falls, battery assy is dangled below it
-- Cage and vanes steer the assy (hopefully without any crazy caternary effects on initial vector)
-- If cage assy burn-up is imminent enough to take out the control surfaces, then a charge blows the battery pack so it hopefuly accelerates in burn up (obviously, the charge itself could be a problem, but if it is a shaped charge, it might limit the radius of the self-destruct, and mabe just a sparkly light show happens with lots of smaller burning bits
I am not an engineer, obviously, but if the burning bits are of high enough altitude (engineers can calculate that; i cannot) they may extinguish before landing on Earth, but hopefully land where there are no population centers.
As far as an intact burning battery landing through the roof, we ALL accept (willingly or grudgingly) that aloft parts might land on us. Others have died from parts or even whole planes, so just what is wrong with my idea if the deaths involved are reduced? Well, changing the location of the deaths changes the actual victims. Maybe it's "playing God", maybe it's triage. But, why should a billion dollar plane (exaggeration, i know) and 300 lives face certain death if the plane is up too high and too far away from a safe landing field, when there is no guarantee that a burning battery will actually hit a house?
Re: Idea... not novel, but still...
> the legalities of dropping items from aircraft other than in times of conflict.
ANO Article 129 generally prohibits dropping anything from an aircraft without an appropriate certificate (i.e.permission), but subsection 3 explicitly exempts "the jettisoning, in case of emergency, of fuel or other articles in the aircraft".
Note, however, that subsection 1 is still operational, and that requries "Articles and animals (whether or not attached to a parachute) must not be dropped, or permitted to drop, from an aircraft in flight so as to endanger persons or property."
There's also the difficulty of ejecting a flaming battery from the pressurised part of the plane into the unpressurised atmosphere without substantially depressurising the plane (even in the event of difficulties because things have changed shape). It's not insurmountable, but I'll betcha it adds more weight than just using a battery that doesn't exhibit the problems in the first place...
Vic.
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