Beyond economic repair?
 

Qantas'll have her... :ouch:

FAA Orders Inspections of Honeywell Emergency Locator Transmitters
 

FAA to issue AD:

Actually Glare is certified to be fireproof. It outperforms aluminum by several orders of magnitude. It even outperforms steel depending on the exact test setup. It is used as firewall and as cargo liner fire barrier. It´s a shame that Airbus did abandon it on the A350.

Will the aircraft become flyable and return to normal flying or will be grounded :ugh:

Status
 

Has anyone got news on the repair status of this grounded Ethiopian aircraft? Would like to hear about the progress - just curious.:ouch:

I am led to believe she had had her engines removed and parts of the interior. As far as the repair is concernee no one really knows. I run a website that catalogues the dreamliner airframes and incidents etc (b787register) and I have tried to contact Ethiopian but they never respond.
I wouldn't at all be surprised to see her broken up

But until I do, here it is:
Ethiopian 787 'Queen of Sheba' | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

b787register
 

b787register.co.uk for the curious

And it certainly hasn't had its engines removed in the two weeks since that photo was taken.

It's currently occupying Stand 616 at LHR (western side of the Cargo cul-de-sac) while its fate is being considered.

I wonder if she had the engines removed for some knida maintenance or even if I had been fed some duff info.
It looks like from the photo she has the inlets covered for her engines. Perhaps thats where the confusion was someone saw people putting these covers on and assumed the engines where being removed?

OTHO why would you leave engines sitting idle for several weeks when they should be located in a spares location in case somebody needs one immediately ?

If somebody needed one immediately, that would only help if they had conveniently gone u/s at wherever you had chosen to locate the spares. :O

I suspect there are enough spare GEnx engines already to support the fleet, anyway.

There is also the issue of perception - while ETH and Boeing are trying to maintain the impression (whether true or not) that the aircraft isn't a write-off, it wouldn't be good PR to have the aircraft start to look like a Christmas tree.

I would presume that until the lawyers/insurance underwriters have fully established the cause/liabilty, the a/c would remain intact until the time a descision is made about what will happen to it.

Let's be hones if they could repair it they would have started working on it and not prepared it for what looks like long term storage or worse

:ugh: Depends if they have fuel filters is one guess. :ugh:

Other than wheel covers and engine blanks (both readily removable) I can't see any evidence of preparation for long-term storage. The doors haven't been taped, the transparencies haven't been blanked, etc, and even if it were destined for storage that clearly wouldn't be in situ, where it must be clocking up a fortune in airport parking charges.

If the decision had been made to scrap it, I'd expect the engines and other high value LRUs would already be removed.

Without knowing the extent of the (non-structural) fire damage to the interior, I'd think the easiest repair would be to simply replace the aft fuselage tail section. The 787 fuselage is manufactured as sections - nose, a few constant diameter pieces, and tail - based on the pieces I see sitting around at Boeing waiting for final assembly, the tail section would have most if not all of the structural damage.

A bigger issue might the interior - I suspect most of the interior suffered smoke damage and would need to be replaced (that smell simply does not go away).

It's also possible that if the air safety investigation is still open, it may be quarantined in case the authorities want to do further inspections.

Nail hit on head.

No way,

none of this "just in case" stuff when it comes to million dollar resources.

The investigators will be happy to continue a leisurely investigation only if the owner is not actively using the plane for anything else.

I take it you've never been involved in an air safety investigation. Getting an asset back into service is pretty low on their priority scale.

I think he was being sarcastic.

maybe.

Not being sarcastic.

It's one thing to have an active investigation with a timeline. Quite another to have a pseudo investigation with no time line when it comes to high value assets.

If you leave this open then you will quickly have no industry to investigate.

We may have different opinions but I see no data to support frozen high value assets without a time line.

It is possible but I see slim to zero chance it will uncover anything new or significantly change the current findings, otherwise we would have known by now.

"Detailed examination of the ELT and the possible mechanisms for the initiation and sustaining of the fire in this aircraft continues. Further updates on progress will be published as appropriate."

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources...3%20ET-AOP.pdf

Sounds like an open investigation to me.

Re: Ethiopian 787 'Queen of Sheba' | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Is it me, or have the once clearly visible scorch marks at the base of the fin disappeared?

http://www.nycaviation.com/newspage/...3/07/snip6.jpg

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2881/9...c02e76cb_c.jpg

white speedtape........

Or Krylon rattle-can spray paint :rolleyes:

Even right after the fire, it doesn't look like the damage was very visible from the starboard side:
http://www.airlinereporter.com/wp-co...eg-640x351.jpg

Agree


but using what required resources. Are they by demand (impounding) or as available under some terms of agreement?

With ref the 787 that is parked up on stand 616 in cargo, there is a pile of scaffolding on the ground to erect so they can start some sort of work,

watch this space over the next few days for something to happen !!!

The fact that the a/c has been on the ground for lo these many $$$$ suggests that someone thinks there is something important to learn. Yet another 787 surprise for Boeing engineers to unwrap?

Your own guesswork.

It was recently explained in an article in AW&ST that Boeing is working with Ethiopian and insurer to come up with the best fix and a lot of engineering work is required.

Even though the investigation is ongoing I doubt (and I am sticking with it) anything new will be learned about the fire since there would be plenty of leaks by now.

The 787 haters must wait for something else ...

There probably is quite a bit to learn from this accident in the direction of structural repair techniques for CFRP.

I'll expect that the engineers are hard at work inventing and testing new techniques for restoring heat damaged CFRP structure. Perhaps even something other than just cutting the damaged structure away and replacing it.

Then there are going to be a lot of damaged internal systems in the vicinity of the fire that will need outright replacement and thus will need to be procured.

The first reassures me, not, is it the engineers or the beancounters driving this "fix"?
The second is just :yuk: SLF, like me now, don't hate the 787, we are just, shall we say, apprehensive about flying on one.

Den, the fixed costs should be readily estimated......cost of capital to finance aircraft......cost of time -constrained maint/overhaul/replacement
depreciation.
Fluid costs are storage and admin (plus lawyers?)

Assets are the reusable components/contents of the hull, less cost of dismantling and removal.

Bean-counters will want a big gap between the projected cost of re-commissioning and net revenue from breaking.
the repaired hull may well have a reduced resale value but that's not relevant as the owner would tend to use it's full life in revenue service (this (ethiopian) would produce the same return as a non-repaired hull)

The longer it sits, the more the gap in viability of repair shrinks. Remember, the "industry" surrounding the loss/ repair all want paying, as does the airport.

Rome /Nero / Fiddle /Burn (highly appropriate under the circumstances :\ )

Steve,

Seems to me the gap shrinks significantly only if you know in advance that the aircraft will sit for an extended period before repairs begin. If the repair decision is made (or reconsidered) at the end of the waiting period, the storage/debt service/etc. costs are sunk and have to be subtracted from either the salvage value or the value of the repaired hull.

If the engineers are busy inventing and testing repair techniques, as has been suggested, does this mean they are going to use the plane and SLF as a flying test bench?

IF they do scrap it, its not going to be cheap.

All that yummy carbon fibre with no home to go to.

I'd have thought there were two main options:

1. Repair what they can in-situ, then add enough strengthening inside and outside to make it airworthy (but ugly). Fly it empty and depressurised to Boeing or somewhere that can do the job properly in a controlled environment. This will probably involve the replacement of a large section of the fuselage with a new construct.

2. Attempt to get it back to 'showroom standard' while it's parked outside at LHR during the winter (if they can't hire some hangar space). Largely a voyage into the unknown, I'd guess.

C/Steve, I understand.
Whichever way one looks at it though, this is going to be costly for Boeing.
I hope they succeed in overcoming their problems, Thomson's 787's go over me at around FL 15-20 and they look nice through the video amps :)