BA787 Smoking at LHR
 

There are press reports that fire engines were called to a parked BA 787 this morning, following reports of a smell of burning.
The aircraft was apparently undergoing maintenance at the time.
Photo here: Heathrow Airport fire: reports of burning on British Airways plane | London Evening Standard

Smell?
 

The group seems to be congregating around the belly dump tube for the battery enclosure in the EEbay?

So what`s the news, just another self-combusting dreamliner. Concours77 says batteries are on ebay and lots of people gathering around somebody`s belly tube. Not a pleasant sight I`d have thought.

Boeing seem to have messed these aircraft up in so many ways. Having just travelled in them twice in the "pointy end" I was very disappointed in the noise levels.

An A380 in the last row economy is much quieter that these things.

Almost every other day we hear about another engine shutdown in them.

And what now? Battery issues again??

It's ironic you mention messed Boeing up and then compare it to the A380 when one design has several years worths of back orders and the other's future is uncertain due lack of orders...

"... if the battery has cooked off the containment has presumably done it's job"

ok, but there should be a health warning sticker placed so the pax in seat 3?? knows they're sitting in a potentially very hot seat.

Apparently this was a false alarm. There was a smell on board and fire service was dispatched as a precaution. But they didn't find anything and left after 30 minutes.

Judging from that ES/Instagram photo, the aircraft in question looks to have been B789 G-ZBKG on Stand 552, which had arrived from AUH 4 hours previously.

I'm sure all you guys know, but I don't: can someone tell me what a belly dump tube is (sounds like something you need after visiting certain restaurants) and why a battery enclosure has one?

If the pilot, I mean aircraft, goes to the wrong sort of restaurant, I mean battery manufacturer, and ends up with a flaming chili vindaloo ache in his guts, I mean thermal runaway in the battery compartment, they both want some easy way to get rid of the toxic material :)

Airplane detail here: http://www.boeing.com/assets/pdf/com...procedures.pdf

Pilot advice can be found in many places, I recommend a lassi and choosing a better restaurant next time :)

Thanks!

That did not stop the usual suspects from launching their usual attacks and trying to start an A versus B scrum yet again.

".....That did not stop the usual suspects from launching their usual attacks and trying to start an A versus B scrum..."

Not my intention.

Thanks to Nicolai for the link, Boeing seem to have made the original problem quite manageable....

Can anyone inform if Yuasa is still building a square (in section) battery from a continuous roll of separator, electrolyte, etc.? I thought at the time molding a cylinder into a square stack introduced mechanical stresses and increased the occurrence of hot spots?

Hi Nicolai
Do they really mean downwind or,what?:rolleyes:

I would prefer to be upwind of the toxic fumes than downwind, but each to their own.

I noticed that apparent inconsistency too, but perhaps they mean "move everyone around the airplane to upwind and at least 18m away".

Similar to how one might say "The building was evacuated to the car park" - meaning everyone in the building moved to the car park.

Nicolai
I guess they do actually mean "evacuate everyone to a position upwind at least 18m from the aeroplane" but, that is only part of the issue. What about the adjacent jet that is downwind and boarding pax from busses etc in a possible scenario? The toxic gases are extremely nasty. what is the safety recommendation for evacuating downwind of a battery event? BTW, anyone within the safety distance must wear positive pressure breathing equipment so, all those guys staring at the "event" are in the wrong place!

Doesn't all this precautionary stainless-steel enclosure and associated whatnots rather negate the advantages of these batteries?

Just asking....

I was wondering that, the battery issues were after my time but I guess weight-wise it could be the case although perhaps in energy per unit volume they still win? As you can see in the pictures included in the Boeing fire-fighting document a few posts up, space is very, very tight, especially around the Aft EEbay battery, so more conventional battery technology was not going to fit without massive re-working.

That looks like a picture in an early airplane - ZA001 or 2 at a guess and it was tight even before the bullet-proof plate got added! 'my' bit of kit was the monster cardframe to the left of the battery and if you look closely you can probably still see bits of my skin from the happy months I spent pulling the darn thing in and out back in the day - and that was before the battery put on weight!