Japanese Regulators Follow FAA's Lead In Lifting The Grounding

The FAA on Thursday said that as soon as U.S. airlines make the necessary changes to the Dreamliner's battery system, it is cleared to return to revenue service. The Dreamliners have been grounded since mid-January following a battery fire that occurred while one of JAL's airplanes sat at a gate at Boston Logan International Airport.

The approval was released as a AD by the FAA with an effective date of April 26. The AD requires installing main and auxiliary power unit (APU) battery enclosures and environmental control system (ECS) ducts; and replacing the main battery, APU battery, and their respective battery chargers. The AD also requires revising the maintenance program to include an airworthiness limitation, and revises the applicability by removing airplanes on which these changes have been incorporated in production prior to delivery.

The FAA says the modifications will minimize the occurrence of battery cell failures and propagation of such failures to other cells and to contain any flammable electrolytes, heat, and smoke released during a battery thermal event in order to prevent damage to critical systems and structures and the potential for fire in the electronics equipment bays. A comment period is open until June 10.

While the AD applies to all U.S.-registered airplanes, only United, has actually taken delivery of a 787. That carrier has six of the airplanes that will need to be repaired at a cost of about $2.8 million each.

In Japan, where some officials had said that the certification process might take longer, civil aviation authorities said that they would follow the FAA's lead in approving a return of the airplanes to service as soon as they had been modified. "As the FAA is to approve the resumption as of Friday morning US time, we will take the same step," an official at the transport ministry said, according to a report from the French news service AFP.

Boeing has delivered 50 Dreamliners to airlines worldwide. All have been grounded since the battery incidents in January, and several carriers have said they will seek restitution from the planemaker for lost revenue while the battery system was revamped.

(Images provided by Boeing)

FMI: www.faa.gov, www.boeing.com