Boeing proposes 787 Dreamliner fix to FAA

James Morgan/Boeing Australia/Getty Images

NEW YORK Boeing (BA) took a step Friday toward getting its 787 Dreamliners flying again, proposing a fix for the plane's troubled batteries that could allow the flights to resume as early as April, congressional officials said.

The next question is whether the Federal Aviation Administration will agree to let the planes fly even though the root cause of a battery fire in one plane and a smoking battery in another is still unknown.

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Dreamliner investigation

The company told CBS News on Friday that Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Ray Conner held what it called "a productive meeting" in Washington with Michael Huerta, head of the Federal Aviation Administration.

"We are encouraged by the progress being made toward resolving the issue and returning the 787 to flight for our customers and their passengers around the world," said the planemaker in a statement.

The proposed plan calls for revamping the aircraft's two kinds of lithium ion batteries to ensure that any short-circuiting that could lead to a fire won't spread from one battery cell to the others, officials said. That would be achieved by placing more robust ceramic insulation between each of the battery's eight cells. The aim is to contain not only the short-circuiting, but any thermal runaway, a chemical reaction that leads to progressively hotter temperatures.

The additional spacers will enlarge the battery, requiring a bigger battery box to hold the eight cells. That new box would also be more robust, with greater insulation along its sides to prevent any fire from escaping, officials said.

The plan will require testing and partially recertifying the safety of the plane's batteries, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly.

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787 Dreamliner batteries: Questions remain

The testing and recertification will take time, with engineers currently estimating completion sometime in April, they said.

It's up to Huerta to decide whether to approve the plan. But Boeing's plan is not a surprise, since the company has kept regulators closely informed, said Boeing. The plane maker informed CBS News that its meeting with the FAA on Friday was productive.

Boeing, the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board still have not identified the root cause of a Jan. 7 fire that erupted in an auxiliary power unit battery of a Japan Airlines 787 about a half hour after the plane landed at Boston's Logan International Airport. The safety board is investigating that incident.

Engineers and battery experts gathered by Boeing developed a list of possible causes for the fire and a plan to modify the batteries to address the spread of a fire created by any of those causes, officials said.

After the Jan. 7 fire and an emergency landing by an All Nippon Airways 787 in Japan, the FAA and aviation authorities overseas ordered the planes grounded. There are a total of 50 of the planes in the fleets of seven airlines in six countries.

On Thursday, United Airlines cut its six 787s from its flying plans at least until June and postponed its new Denver-to-Tokyo flights as airlines continued to tear up their schedules while the plane is out of service. United is the only U.S. carrier with 787s in its fleet.

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Among the many unanswered questions is how the 787 battery problems will affect Boeing's effort to win FAA permission for the planes to make flights that venture further from the nearest airport, such as those that travel over wide expanses of ocean. The FAA has tighter requirements for such flights in twin-engine planes because it wants to make sure the plane can keep flying if it loses an engine or encounters other problems far away from a safe landing.

Until it was grounded, the 787 could fly up to three hours away from the nearest airport. That's far enough for flights between the U.S. and Europe and some flights over the Arctic, for instance. But Boeing wants permission for flights up to 5.5 hours from the nearest airport. Its 777 is already certified for such flights.

Boeing said last month that it was close to submitting a plan for those longer flights.

[skydrifter1]

Fire and smoke containment are only one risk/solution. The Main Battery is also the emergency/standby power source for the captain's instruments. Total electrical failures, leaving only the emergency/standby power, are sufficiently common in history to regard the "backup" battery as the Holy Grail of survival. Losing a single cell could cause an overload on the remaining cells - to what effect? The core issue is amperage, not voltage. Is the proposed ventilation adequate to prevent an explosive condition? What range of "destructive testing" is proposed? Statistics are clearly a poor indicator.

[Michaellrb]

Lithium Ion batteries had never been allowed in commercial aircraft prior to an exception granted by the FAA in 2007 to Boeing.The FAA based that on numerous cargo hold fires with Li-on batteries including one full crew fatality for Fedex. That Boeing incoporated polymeric separators made of polyethelyne, vacuum evaporated for ionic conduction is appalling. The FAA is responsible here as well.Ceramic technology which is stable and inflammible has been around for years. A competent engineering program would have replaced the unsafe polymerics as soon as they came out. Only ceramic separators are allowed in vehicle Li-on batteries. Aren't we told that flying is safer than driving your car?