At least the 787's teething problems didn't include a Boeing test pilot flying a 787 into the trees in front of a crowd of airshow spectators! ;-)

 

And hopefully, it will not have the same 737 rudder design flaw that crashed so many airliner...

 

The micro cracks on the A380 were, technician and Airbus problem, you need a lot of micro-mega cracks to tear a wing apart. Consecutive fires that can burn your customers alive are an other.

 

teething problems are not to put a plane on fire, it's been at least 3 times already, and people around me saying that they will change their flight for a 777-747-380 instead. they are not pilots, just simple tourists.

At least Boeing is being forthright about what's going on.

 

Like they have a choice...

 

5% down on the market in one day, order-option that could be cancelled.

Still a fire is a fire. When did a 777 or a 767 last have a fire on the ground (or n the air!)? Tell me that.

 

Daniel

 

Two minutes of Googling turned up 2008 for the 767 and 2011 for the 777 and here's another 767 fire, in the galley this time, in mid-air no less.

 

 

What damage these fires do to the composites really has to be asssed. Because if the composites become in any way damaged the alleged strength is no longer there. I really would be cautious of flying in a previously damaged 787 hull that had not been fully repaired with totally new panels etc.,

 

As for the battery problem the sim comunity can offer Boeing a very quick cure.

[electrical]

electric_always_available=1

Change the 1 to a 0 = no more battery fires!!

 

Very true, but fire damage to aluminium alloys is also a tricky thing. Application of high temperature will change the properties of your aluminium quite drastically, it's one of the main reasons planes aren't welded. I wouldn't fly in an Al plane after a fire unless all the heat affected panels had been replaced or reinforced either.

Two minutes of Googling turned up 2008 for the 767 and 2011 for the 777 and here's another 767 fire, in the galley this time, in mid-air no less.

 

 

 

 I wouldn't fly in an Al plane after a fire unless all the heat affected panels had been replaced or reinforced either.

 

I certainly would not fly in any of Fs9's or FSX's AI aircraft either. Their pilots have a total disregard for safety and regulations!!

Common sense isn't a given these days I suppose. Anyway thanks for your reply, I suppose there are always two sides to a debate.

At one time, the view that the world was flat was considered "common sense."

 

I'm just wondering, has a Boeing aircraft ever had so many fire incidents in such a short amount of time?

Probably, but not with 100+ 24/7 news outlets focusing on it. The history of Ni-Cd batteries in aircraft also includes a lot of battery compartment fires across decades in a wide variety of aircraft.

 

You can try poking fun at me but it just goes to show that your argument is pretty hollow when you have to start criticising those posting remarks in a personal way.

Not poking fun. Pointing out that you immediately jumped to the conclusion that Li batteries must be the cause of this fire (they weren't) and that lithium batteries are so inherently dangerous that their use in an airplane should never be considered (they aren't).

 

This is an aviation forum. Those that question things learn more. Pilots. Those that do not, well they think they know it all. Prime indicators of someone who is more than ready for a crash.

Your first post in this thread said "I knew I didn't trust Boeing's workaround." That's not questioning things, that's jumping to conclusions. And your labelling a massive re-engineering effort a "workaround" doesn't seem to fall into the realm of "questioning" or "learning" anything.

 

Criticism won't get you far, but having a mind open to learn new things will.

Well you've been openly critical about Boeing's use of Li battery technology and their efforts to fix the problem here.

 

Those people that designed the cargo door on the Boeing 747 ended up being wrong. And so could you. And so could I. But if this s about you scoring the most points to prove that you are better than me, we'll you win! Yes! I'm past thinking I'm better than others.

And structural changes to the cargo doors and their supporting structures on the B747 were subsequently made. Do you consider that a "workaround" as well?

 

Really, I don't think I'm better than you. Calling you on your premature false conclusion that this must be another battery problem, or challenging the continuation of folklore hysterics on the dangers of Li batteries isn't personal.

 

Regards

bendead, on 14 Jul 2013 - 05:08 AM, said:

And hopefully, it will not have the same 737 rudder design flaw that crashed so many airliner...

I seem to remember an A300 losing its tail and killing a bunch of people in NYC a few months after the 9/11 attacks.

 

bendead, on 14 Jul 2013 - 05:08 AM, said:

teething problems are not to put a plane on fire, it's been at least 3 times already, and people around me saying that they will change their flight for a 777-747-380 instead. they are not pilots, just simple tourists.

Airplanes catch fire and overheat things more often than you'd think--engine fires, particularly during start, do happen, as do brake fires, cargo fires, and electrical fires. A fire on an unattended airplane, just like a fire in an unattended building, has time to grow and do a lot of damage since there's nobody there taking action to nip things in the bud. I had smoke billowing out of a panel in a C-141 over the middle of the Pacific Ocean one night--pulling the CB for the coffee jug solved that one. If that had happened with the jet sitting on the ramp with ground power and a crew chief outside working on something, it could have done a lot more than smoke.

 

But it's true that this press focus can do a lot of damage--after a crash in Chicago, the DC-10 was the focus of a similar unrelenting press crusade to report every minor incident on a DC-10, and that eventually drove the re-naming of the DC-11 to the MD-11. As an example, the Thomson B787 that returned to Manchester the same day as the fire on the Ethiopian jet was reported on as if it were an unfolding disaster. I was on a B767 that returned to Frankfurt some years back--for a failed navigation component required for the overwater portion of the flight. The fact that the Thomson bird burned fuel while orbiting for 3 hours rather than dumping it and getting down quick speaks volumes on the minor nature of the incident--except in the eyes of a press devoted to adding whatever sensationalism is necessary to get people to watch.

 

Regards

Two minutes of Googling turned up 2008 for the 767 and 2011 for the 777 and here's another 767 fire, in the galley this time, in mid-air no less.

 

 

 

Very true, but fire damage to aluminium alloys is also a tricky thing. Application of high temperature will change the properties of your aluminium quite drastically, it's one of the main reasons planes aren't welded. I wouldn't fly in an Al plane after a fire unless all the heat affected panels had been replaced or reinforced either.

"The aircraft was found to differ from Boeing's design in that a clamp supporting the first officer's wiring to the oxygen mask light panel was missing. The wiring was not sleeved and a large loop of unsupported wire was found. The investigation determined that about 280 aircraft including all of Egyptair's Boeing 777s were delivered that way."

 

So it wasn't even anything to do with Boeing, the Egyptair 777.

 

But the 787 has been proven to have design flaws that cause fire. Maybe they have been fixed. But the recent fire suggests that the 787 is not to be trusted. Too much new stuff for me to risk a fire at altitude. I had similar skepticism with the A380 but now we know where the faults are with that, mostly the maker of the engines. I have quite a bit of trust in the A380 now. Now imagine if that bird had had even one fire. If a fire can destroy an aircraft without having to burn the whole thing, the cost of it.......

 

And I am a Boeing guy.

 

 

EDIT:

 

Additional information: the 767 fire was not a design fault of Boeing:

 

Investigators at the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) faulted the FAA and cargo carrier ABX Air for deficiencies that led to a ground fire on board an ABX Boeing 767-200 at the San Francisco Airport late in the night of 28 June 2008.

 

The fire, which broke out in the supernumerary section directly behind the cockpit, began after cargo had been loaded but before pilots started the aircraft's engines for taxiing. The aircraft was substantially damaged though neither the pilot nor copilot was injured.

 

The probable cause of the fire, revealed by the NTSB during a final hearing on the incident this morning, was the design of the supplemental oxygen system in the supernumerary compartment installed by Israeli Aircraft Industries (IAI) during the conversion of the aircraft from a passenger-carrying to cargo-carrying configuration.

 

In particular, the supplemental oxygen hoses used to supply oxygen to masks in the supernumerary seating area were electrically conductive, and when put into contact with adjacent wiring that had contacted the oxygen lines and developed a short-circuit, caused a torch-like fire to break out from the hose and ignite nearby materials in the ceiling portion of the aircraft.

 

NTSB investigators simulated several ignition scenarios to determine the most likely chain of events.

 

The board faulted FAA for failing to require operators through an airworthiness directive (AD) to replace all oxygen hoses found to be electrically conductive, an issue first discovered by Boeing more than a decade ago. The airframer in 1999 had issued its own service bulletin (SB) to 76 operators advising them to change out certain hoses with a new version that included a plastic spacer at each end of the flexible hoses. FAA participated in the development of the SB, but considered the problem to be one of reliability, not safety, according to NTSB officials, and therefore did not release a companion AD.

 

ABX had been in the process of replacing its hoses, though the SB was focused only on the cockpit oxygen supplies and did not apply to the supernumerary area that IAI had installed.

 

To correct the problem, the NTSB has issued a recommendation to the FAA to modify its AD process to look more broadly at accessories of similar design to those identified as problematic by service bulletins.

 

For ABX, the NTSB faulted its in-house continuing airworthiness programme for not solving what had been recorded as a persistent problem with the incident aircraft's oxygen system for 18 months before the fire. The Board issued a recommendation that would require the cargo carrier to solve such problems earlier.

 

Also included were recommendations to better separate, isolate and ground oxygen and electrical lines, require smoke detectors in supernumerary areas and perform checks of passengers reading lights that during the investigation were found to be capable of generating sparks.

 

 

 

 

The issue is quickly materialising for those folks that defend the integrity of the design of the 787 is the very integrity of the design of the 787 and those motives of whom are giving the orders to allow certain technology and high risk components to be installed on the aircraft. This suggests a not very conservative design from scratch with quite a few unknowns. For example, has a military aircraft been in use with Lithium Ion batteries for over five years? Seems like fuel saving is the crunch here and is it coming at the cost of safety? In design decisions, are the motives purely to compete with Airbus's A350 and to save more fuel or their unknown motives here?

 

Daniel

 

 

Your first post in this thread said "I knew I didn't trust Boeing's workaround." That's not questioning things, that's jumping to conclusions. And your labelling a massive re-engineering effort a "workaround" doesn't seem to fall into the realm of "questioning" or "learning" anything.

 

I honestly believe that the Lithium-ion batteries are highly flammable and are impossible to stop burning once on fire. They are unstable and this is a scientific fact. Read the links I posted above.

 

It is a workaround because the engineers that designed it thought it was fine. And they were probably told they were keeping it anyway.

 

If fires are happening on brand new aircraft and it is because of the design, and taking into account the aircraft is losing customers because it is three years too late and Boeing can't afford delaying their customers any more, I would say Boeing has ultimately locked themselves in and won't change it unless forced to. Whether that be a hull loss on the ground or in flight which would be more shocking and definitely make a lot of people launch a court case against Boeing, or just a series of more fires, it is only speculative. In any case I could be wrong. But the facts are the 787 is not suffering teething problems, but very serious safety issues that call the aircraft's safety into question.

 

Daniel

I honestly believe that the Lithium-ion batteries are highly flammable and are impossible to stop burning once on fire. They are unstable and this is a scientific fact. Read the links I posted above.

 

It is a workaround because the engineers that designed it thought it was fine. And they were probably told they were keeping it anyway.

 

If fires are happening on brand new aircraft and it is because of the design, and taking into account the aircraft is losing customers because it is three years too late and Boeing can't afford delaying their customers any more, I would say Boeing has ultimately locked themselves in and won't change it unless forced to. Whether that be a hull loss on the ground or in flight which would be more shocking and definitely make a lot of people launch a court case against Boeing, or just a series of more fires, it is only speculative. In any case I could be wrong. But the facts are the 787 is not suffering teething problems, but very serious safety issues that call the aircraft's safety into question.

 

Daniel

 

Since Boeing redesigned the batteries no battery fires have happened.  The fix was tested and approved by Boeing and the regulatory agencies.  While the previous battery design did have its flaws this new design has not showed any issues.

 

Until the time that a new battery does start a fire (if ever) then your comments about it being unsafe are baseless.

I seem to remember an A300 losing its tail and killing a bunch of people in NYC a few months after the 9/11 attacks.

Now come on, if you want to be taken seriously with your talk of Boeings efforts to solve this issue (which personally I think hasn't been solved, but anyway) then coming out with such a nonsense statement just destroys any credibility you might have tried to build. It smacks of playground name calling, especially when you should well know that a high speed full rudder doublet applied above manoeuvring speed would likely tear the vertical stab of any airliner. The A300 is a perfectly safe and well built airliner, but can't cater for downright stupid control inputs - like most aircraft.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Since Boeing redesigned the batteries no battery fires have happened. The fix was tested and approved by Boeing and the regulatory agencies. While the previous battery design did have its flaws this new design has not showed any issues.

 

Until the time that a new battery does start a fire (if ever) then your comments about it being unsafe are baseless.

 

Baseless?

 

"It's well known that Li-ion batteries are inherently less stable than Ni-cad or other battery types. Li-ion batteries are more susceptible to a failure mode called thermal runaway, when one cell overheats (exceeding 130 degrees C), triggering a chain reaction in the neighboring cells and causing a catastrophic failure at high temperature. The root cause can be manufacturing defects, overcharging, or physical damage such as a puncture. There are many well-documented cases of Li-ion battery fires in consumer electronics, and more alarmingly, in aircraft: In 2010, a UPS 747 freighter crashed because of a main-deck cargo fire fueled by a large shipment of Li-ion batteries. "

 

Read more: Can Boeing's Battery Fix Save the Dreamliner? - Popular Mechanics

Follow us: @PopMech on Twitter | popularmechanics on Facebook

Visit us at PopularMechanics.com

 

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/safety/can-boeings-battery-fix-save-the-dreamliner-15220754

 

 

I let facts speak for themselves.

 

 

Daniel

Baseless?

 

"It's well known that Li-ion batteries are inherently less stable than Ni-cad or other battery types. Li-ion batteries are more susceptible to a failure mode called thermal runaway, when one cell overheats (exceeding 130 degrees C), triggering a chain reaction in the neighboring cells and causing a catastrophic failure at high temperature. The root cause can be manufacturing defects, overcharging, or physical damage such as a puncture. There are many well-documented cases of Li-ion battery fires in consumer electronics, and more alarmingly, in aircraft: In 2010, a UPS 747 freighter crashed because of a main-deck cargo fire fueled by a large shipment of Li-ion batteries. "

 

Read more: Can Boeing's Battery Fix Save the Dreamliner? - Popular Mechanics

Follow us: @PopMech on Twitter | popularmechanics on Facebook

Visit us at PopularMechanics.com

 

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/safety/can-boeings-battery-fix-save-the-dreamliner-15220754

 

 

I let facts speak for themselves.

 

 

Daniel

I assume you are pushing for no laptops and cell phones on aircraft as well then?  In that case every airplane in the sky is a flying deathtrap.

 

After redesigning the inside of the battery to help prevent a thermal runaway condition Boeing also added a giant fireproof metal box, which upon testing they mechanically initiated a thermal runaway with a battery and let it run for hours.  So if in your worst case scenario a thermal runaway does occur it has been proven through testing that no fire will occur.

 

But it seems like you pick and choose the facts you use.  And only focus on ones that support your predefined view on the 787.

I will wait for the Final Report to come out, but for the time being I will stand with my initial conjecture that something in the Relief Crew Berthing Area caught fire; whether it was in the Galley or not.

The micro cracks on the A380 were, technician and Airbus problem, you need a lot of micro-mega cracks to tear a wing apart.

 

But at least Airbus made a positive ID as to what caused the problem, Boeing still isn't sure why the batteries cooked.

"The aircraft was found to differ from Boeing's design in that a clamp supporting the first officer's wiring to the oxygen mask light panel was missing. The wiring was not sleeved and a large loop of unsupported wire was found. The investigation determined that about 280 aircraft including all of Egyptair's Boeing 777s were delivered that way."

 

So it wasn't even anything to do with Boeing, the Egyptair 777.

 

But the 787 has been proven to have design flaws that cause fire. Maybe they have been fixed. But the recent fire suggests that the 787 is not to be trusted. Too much new stuff for me to risk a fire at altitude. I had similar skepticism with the A380 but now we know where the faults are with that, mostly the maker of the engines. I have quite a bit of trust in the A380 now. Now imagine if that bird had had even one fire. If a fire can destroy an aircraft without having to burn the whole thing, the cost of it.......

 

The issue is quickly materialising for those folks that defend the integrity of the design of the 787 is the very integrity of the design of the 787 and those motives of whom are giving the orders to allow certain technology and high risk components to be installed on the aircraft. This suggests a not very conservative design from scratch with quite a few unknowns. For example, has a military aircraft been in use with Lithium Ion batteries for over five years? Seems like fuel saving is the crunch here and is it coming at the cost of safety? In design decisions, are the motives purely to compete with Airbus's A350 and to save more fuel or their unknown motives here?

 

Daniel

 

You asked for the last time a 767 and a T7 had caught fire, I answered. You didn't specify that the fire had to be caused by a design flaw. Incidentally, if manufacturing quality control is poor (e.g. if 280 aircraft are delivered with wiring that does not match the spec) that is just as much Boeing's responsibility as a design flaw would be. Adding to that, how to you know that this latest fire is Boeing's fault?

 

I'd be interested to know what 'unknown motives' you think are at play, because I'm pretty sure both Boeing and Airbus have a pretty clear motive: maximise profits and/or shareholder value. Planes that fall out of the sky tend to be bad for both of those.

 

Li-ion batteries are not the most stable of devices, but neither is a huge tank of kerosene, and we have no qualms boarding planes lugging those around.

 

All we know at the moment is that a 787 caught fire and that there is visible fire damage to the fuselage crown at the rear end of the fuselage. Given that the batteries are located in the belly this makes it unlikely that a battery is the source of the fire, but of course we won't know for sure until the investigation is completed. Is the 787 100% safe? No, but neither is any other aircraft. However until we know the cause of this incident, it does not prove anything about the 787's safety, either way. Saying that this incident proves 787s are flying death-traps is jumping to conclusions just as much as saying there is absolutely nothing to worry about.

 

I certainly would not fly in any of Fs9's or FSX's AI aircraft either. Their pilots have a total disregard for safety and regulations!!

 

I wrote Al (capital A, small l) not AI (capital A, capital I), i.e. the chemical symbol for aluminium, but then you already knew that .

I certainly would not fly in any of Fs9's or FSX's AI aircraft either. Their pilots have a total disregard for safety and regulations!!

No Dress Code, either. And where's the vFAA when you need them? Probably sitting in their cubicles, streaming Jerry Springer on Netflix!

 

:Shocked: