Why Is Boeing's 787 Dreamliner Such A Piece Of Crap?

I still think it's a brilliant plane that will inspire many others.

Starting to look like the short cut to more profit.. by using the outsourcing genie… has some very astounding draw backs….
The history of aviation has made it impossible to bid on anything unless you were a proven vendor with years of quality service. The decision to fabricate a new source of parts with so many new vendors with no prior experience has proven to be a mythical adventure…
OUTSOURCING is not the answer to profit margins… YUCK..
it may implode your future….

Very expensive miscalculation on the bean counters who wanted to outsmart the Machinist Union ….

They.... the UNION workers.... who had a rich history of getting it done right… they only wanted job security and to be a valued partner in the FUTURE OF BOEING ….

Management chose to hitch there wagon to a bunch of strangers who would work of nothing… Big Savings Right… YOUR CALL

Aircraft with the tendency to explode have not historically fared well. For example, after the LZ-129 exploded, killing a third aboard, the LZ-130 was grounded, ending the "Hindenburg"-class Zeppelin. The Me-163, with the rather unfortunate name "Komet," had the even more unfortunate tendency to become one. The Mitsubishi G4M- nicknamed the "Zippo"- would turn into a blazing conflagration if you so much as looked at it funny, which hampered it's mission effectiveness in the Second World War. Air France 4590, the first and last Concorde crash, in which ground obstructions caused the aircraft to spectacularly explode and kill everyone aboard, brought an end to the world's only supersonic airliner.

What I'm trying to say is that even though this isn't as bad an issue, yet, it most certainly doesn't bode well for Boeing or the Dreamliner(can we call it the Nightmare yet?).

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Always defer to facts rather than philosophy.

J. James, your comments are in direct opposition to your signature. Alter either one immediately if you intend to express a credible opinion.

AH Miles, Isn't it interesting that you don't know the cause of the 787 electrical issues aside from what has been released to the media and yet you have 'determined' that the cause is non-union labor?
I am interested in FACTS, not biased supposition. When you have facts to share, get back to us.

nkfro, would you be kind enough to point out any factual errors I have made? Are you disputing that the Hindenburg exploded? Or that the Komet and Mitsubishi had fire issues? Or are you saying that Air France 4590 did not crash? Because those are the facts I stated. The other statements I made- "it certainly doesn't bode well for Boeing or the Dreamliner," "Aircraft with the tendency to explode have not historically fared well," and "it isn't as bad an issue, yet"- are completely true. I haven't even implied the aircraft was poorly made or unsafe- I merely pointed out the risks that a perception of fire danger poses, from a business perspective.

Help me out here, at what point did I lie?

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Always defer to facts rather than philosophy.

J.James,

The fact you are comparing the dreamliner to the hindenburg is the contradiction to your signature. You are taking the medias point and blowing a few small bugs way out of proportion.... The dreamliner hasn't killed anybody; it's just got a few bugs to be worked out!

The fact that it can catch on fire, and still land safely is pretty amazing. It obviously has huge redundancies built into it's design, and is incredibly safe.

There's just a few kinks to be worked out. As in any brand new product! Especially one so complex.

J. James,

While the Hindenburg did explode, airship construction was already a very niche and soon-to-be obsolete market. They were competing for luxury passengers with the cruise liners. They could make a trans-Atlantic trip in half the time of a typical cruise liner. But the cost was definitely high. In 1937, the cost of a trans-Atlantic flight on the Hindenburg was $450, or more than $7,100 in today's dollars. Airships were not intended for the masses, but for the high-paying elite. And by the mid'30s you could already hop a transatlantic flight on a flying boat. It would stop in Bermuda and the Azores, and was much faster than the airships, at less cost. Soon thereafter came the Costellation and the DC-4.

But even before that, the breakout of war in Europe would have stopped all Zepplin flights to America. The Hindenburg was certainly not the first airship to explode, and airships were already on their way out due to war and airplanes. The Graff Zepplin 2 (the LZ-130) wasn't scrapped until 2 years AFTER the Hindenburg disaster. It was completed 1 year after the disaster, and flew for 11 months before stopping service. And in 1940, the Nazis scrapped it (and the unfinished LZ-131) so they could build more airplanes.

The Komet was an experimental rocket-powered aircraft with corrosive liquid fuels. While a few exploded on runways due to filling issues and corrosiveness, most of those that exploded did so due to enemy fire (once they used their rocket fuel they were simply gliders). Anyways, military plane, not really comparable.

"Zippo" was military too, a Japanese bomber. It exploded because it was shot at by the Americans. The Japanese purposely made them extremely light so they could have very long range. They did this by keeping them as light as possible, at the expense of crew safety. They had no armor plating to protect them, nor self-sealing fuel tanks. Hence they'd blow up with just a few well-placed shots. Not comparable to the 787 for so many reasons.

The Concorde did not explode, at least not until it hit the ground. It ran over a piece of titanium that had fallen off another aircraft, and the tire exploded. The rubber from the tire then cut some electical wiring and also hit the fuel tank, causing a shockwave in the tank that cause a fuel valve in the wing to burst open. So now you have fuel flying everywhere and cut electrical wires... needless to say, the fuel caught fire, one engine lost thrust, and it crashed. Not exactly an explosion or fault of the craft when you run over a piece of titanium on the runway.

What's more, only 2 Concorde were ever built, they were almost 30 years old, and normal operations resumed about 3 months after the crash. The problem was that there was only 1 (very expensive and old) Concorde left. Maintenence costs were very high, air travel was down after 9/11, and Airbus announced it would no longer provide support for the long aircraft, so it was retired. This aircraft's lack of a future had nothing to do with an explosion, but everything to do with age, costs, a crash, and lack of numbers.

Aside from being shot down by a SAM (such as Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 or Iran Air Flight 655) or being blown up by a terrorist bomb (such as Pan Am Flight 103), actual passenger aircraft explosions are rare. The most recent example is probably TWA Flight 800. Center fuel tank exploded shortly after takeoff and that was that. But yet the 747 aircraft is still flying millions of people around every year.

Or how about the Comet? About a year after it was first introduced in 1952 it started having serious problems, with 3 of the craft tearing apart in mid-flight (not quite an explosion, but just as devastating). They were grounded, the structural issues (including square windows) were found, and resolved, and the plane (with it's successive models and variants) went on to have a very long career. In fact, one variant, the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod, was still flying until mid-2011. That's a LONG time, almost 60 years of flying AFTER the 3 devastating mid-air disintegrations.

My point is that passenger airliners often have initial problems, some worse than others, depending on how much new technology is involved. Complicated circuitry and battery chemistries are fairly untested in these circumstances (airliners), and thus qualify as new technology. In the long-run, I think this is nothing but a major speed-bump for the 787. In 5-10 years very few people will even be able to recall these problems, I predict.

The 787's have not actually caught on fire. The batteries used have severely overheated, but there were no flames produced beyond the battery housing.

The 787 is a safe aircraft, and no one was injured or killed from these failures. We should appreciate the fact that the Boeing corporation had the courage to pursue such a technically advanced commercial aircraft design, given the huge development risks it posed.

The 787 is one of the most technically advanced planes in decades, I would imagine there will be things to work out that could not be foreseen. I wouldn't call it crap.

Not sure why anyone takes anything Dan says seriously. Yet another sad cry for attention.

There were 20 Concordes built, not two.

This is a prime example of irresponsible reporting on an issue that the writer clearly knows VERY LITTLE about. Also, who taught you how to write? My 8 year old presents better sentence structure and grammar in her math (sic) assignments!

Really Popular Science - you have to start looking elsewhere if you wish to be a credible source for non biased, informed, and accurate technical reporting in the future. Until you do I will not renew my subscription and I certainly will avoid clicking on the link to read this kind of drivel!

"The fact you are comparing the dreamliner to the hindenburg is the contradiction to your signature. You are taking the medias point and blowing a few small bugs way out of proportion.... The dreamliner hasn't killed anybody; it's just got a few bugs to be worked out."

I did not compare the two aircraft directly, for obvious reasons. Neither the source nor the problem itself are even remotely similar. As you can plainly see, I was warning about the severe repercussions of having an aircraft that is percieved to be dangerous. The Comet is actually an excellent example- Boeing itself capitalized on the general confusion surrounding the Comet fiasco and ruled the market thereafter. I honestly think we're disagreeing over nothing- I haven't even made the point you're arguing against.

"The Graff[sic] Zepplin[sic] 2 (the LZ-130) wasn't scrapped until 2 years AFTER the Hindenburg disaster. It was completed 1 year after the disaster, and flew for 11 months before stopping service."

You neglected to mention that the LZ-130 Graf Zeppelin 2 was not used as a luxury liner as it was originally intended, and was instead outfitted to conduct surveillance by the military. Passengers were simply distrustful of Zeppelins after the repeated disasters caused by very poor early 20th-century construction, egregious human error and explosive hydrogen.

"In 1937, the cost of a trans-Atlantic flight on the Hindenburg was $450, or more than $7,100 in today's dollars."

That's true, but I'd also like to point out for the sake of context that Zeppelins, their characteristics, scale and cost are very widely misunderstood. Strangely, the Hindenburg cost only about $45 million in today's dollars, compared to the hundreds and hundreds of millions a roughly equivalent modern airplane-in terms of floor space- like an A380 costs, despite the obvious size discrepancy. I can only assume most of the $7,100 ticket went to covering the special infrastructure costs an airship requires rather than to cover the cost and operation of the ship itself. The Hindenburg was also the first and last DZR Zeppelin to turn a commercial profit. People were obviously willing to pay the premium to fly on them, but that changed.

Sadly, Zeppelins existed many decades before the technology existed to make them economically viable and safe to operate, at the cost of 23 passenger airships that crashed, and 736 fatalities. Perhaps it's for the best, though, that people have abandoned them until recently- at least now they have a good shot at regaining a few niche applications.
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Always defer to facts rather than philosophy.

I wasn't aware of some of the facts in your story and I"m hoping you can enlighten me:

"Cockpit windows have cracked several times" - I'm only aware of the one incident near Matsuyama:

http://avherald.com/h?article=45bfcc30&opt=0

When and where has this aircraft experienced several other cracked cockpit windows?

"At least three of the 50 active Dreamliners have had overheating problems with the lithium ion batteries, leading to smoke and/or fire". - I'm aware of only two battery failure events (one on the ground in Boston, and one in the air near Takamatsu). When and where were there additional battery failures amongst active Dreamliners?

Links to source material would be appreciated! Thanks.

Simply a poor choice for a title...

Dan, maybe your the crap...

Just noticed another item in your story that needs some comment from me:

You stated "On the other hand, Qatar Airlines CEO Akbar Al Baker, among other "airline insiders," has said he's not surprised by the groundings."

The linked story from BBC does not attribute this quote to Mr. Al Bakar, and neither does the companion piece which is a lengthy interview with the man. And further, what is actually said by the airline insiders is completely opposite to what you attribue to Mr. Al Bakar. The direct quote with context from the source article is:

"All the faults were discovered in one type of aircraft - the hyper-modern 787 Dreamliner - and the incidents, which have all occurred in a matter of weeks, have generally been treated as safety-scares by passengers and the general media.

Industry observers have responded differently, however, with many insisting they have not been surprised by what has happened."

Note here, the industry insiders are actually saying that response from passengers and media is unwarranted, and that the insiders are unsurprised by the occurence of the faults.

So it seems that you may have made a leap of journalism from general, unattributed comments regarding an overeaction by passengers and media to the incidents, to creating a statement from Mr. Al Bakar that he is not surprised by the grounding.

It could be that you have other background material you can share to validate the accuracy of what you wrote. It would be great to see it.

the latest i've heard is it was overcharging... lions are pretty finicky little buggers if you've ever felt your phone or laptop after charging or during heavy use... high current draw causes overheating which leads to thermal runaway and fire.. there it is...

"it's got a crazy-high energy content for its size and weight--like, twice that of the batteries used in electric cars"

Ok, besides the batteries catching fire, why aren't these batteries used in electirc cars? Volt would get 80 miles on a charge, plenty for a day of work/shopping; or even if you only had time to charge half the capacity you would still get 40 miles. Leaf could have 200 miles per charge.

"Q: How long was this thing in development? How did this slip by?
A: Ah, good question."

I would hope so. You're the one who wrote it. :-)

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@ J.James,
Your comment cites the worst possible examples. The Me 163 Komet and the Mitsubishi G4 M were war planes, built under pressure during a war and most of them were damaged and lost due to enemy action. The Hindenburg was an airship, it did not really explode, it burnt, rapidly but there was no big bang. But since it was an entirely different technology it is not comparable, cars and ships and houses also catch fire sometimes. But your most inane example was the Concorde, after 30 years of operation one plane was lost, because of outside influence. Even though operation was presumed after a short while, the plane was withdrawn by the airlines because it was simply too expensive to operate.
@ A.H. Miles.
So you are telling us that the machinist union could have designed not just a plane but a better plane?
I am certain that in due course the 787 will get the right fixes, hopefully without loss of life. I should not have even read the article since I know that Dan Nosowitz rarely writes a well researched article. His strength are rants.

Very unfair headline, amateur reporting being passed off as legitimate journalism.

This is non-journalistic trash. Dan Nosowitz is slandering first, researching later, or never. There has been some impressive review and commentary in the comment section, however, to recover some value in the time I wasted reading the article which is sensationalist pulp at best.

j.james said:

"What I'm trying to say is that even though this isn't as bad an issue, yet, it most certainly doesn't bode well for Boeing or the Dreamliner(can we call it the Nightmare yet?)."

And then asks:

"nkfro, would you be kind enough to point out any factual errors I have made? Are you disputing that the Hindenburg exploded? Or that the Komet and Mitsubishi had fire issues? Or are you saying that Air France 4590 did not crash? Because those are the facts I stated. The other statements I made- "it certainly doesn't bode well for Boeing or the Dreamliner," "Aircraft with the tendency to explode have not historically fared well," and "it isn't as bad an issue, yet"- are completely true. I haven't even implied the aircraft was poorly made or unsafe- I merely pointed out the risks that a perception of fire danger poses, from a business perspective."

Help me out here, at what point did I lie?

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Always defer to facts rather than philosophy.

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First, I did not say you lied. I said;
"J. James, your comments are in direct opposition to your signature. Alter either one immediately if you intend to express a credible opinion. "

Your insinuation was that the 787 is likely to explode in the absence of credible facts. If that were not true, you'd not have used the Hindenberg as your first example.

My statement stands - Alter either your comments or your signature if you intend to express a credible opinion.

A statement released today indicated issues in the charging circuits.

It's a jetliner on steroids.

Y'know there's nothing like an article written in a smug and superior tone to make me think -- gee, that guy really knows his stuff. The headline alone just screams serious science.

We'll see how this story plays out, but I believe that I'll look for a competent souce of information in the future.

@ford2go - good points. I actually fell for it and thought he had some expert knowledge, which would have been cool if true. Sadly, it looks like "Dan holds an undergraduate degree in English literature from McGill University" which hasn't prepared him very well for aviation journalism. Still holding a faint hope he can pull this one out of the fire, but not holding my breath.

"Your insinuation was that the 787 is likely to explode in the absence of credible facts. If that were not true, you'd not have used the Hindenberg as your first example.
My statement stands - Alter either your comments or your signature if you intend to express a credible opinion."

Uh, right. I never said that it would explode. As I keep saying, seemingly to empty air, those are a few examples of why it is bad for aircraft to be considered unsafe by the military or general public. Whether the reputation is deserved or not is completely beside the point. What matters is how people see it.

"Your comment cites the worst possible examples. The Me 163 Komet and the Mitsubishi G4 M were war planes, built under pressure during a war and most of them were damaged and lost due to enemy action. The Hindenburg was an airship, it did not really explode"

All of these are completely true, but not the point I am arguing. We are talking PR here, not disaster investigation.

"But your most inane example was the Concorde, after 30 years of operation one plane was lost, because of outside influence"

No, actually that example works just fine. Your comment may be true, but it completely ignores the fact that for a while, the general public didn't KNOW that debris caused the explosion, and so they became distrustful of the planes and the Concorde gained a COMPLETELY UNDESERVED reputation for danger- in fact, that makes it the best example of the lot, not the worst!

Let me say it again: these not-so-minor teething problems are a BAD thing for the Dreamliner. Deserved or not, having a reputation for being a fire risk, or even just a reputation as a shoddily-built plane constantly laid up in maintenance, can be incredibly damaging. People won't order them, passengers won't fly on them, the military won't contract them. It's happens before.

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Always defer to facts rather than philosophy.

"Empty air", JJammes? As said before, your comments are not consistent with your signature. Change one or the other if you intend to post a credible opinion.

I don't understand this kind of attack against James and his signature. He just expressed his opinion that these errors in Dreamliners are such bad omens, and despite all these innovations (and marketing commercials of Boeing) maybe not the 787 will be the next step in the evolution in commercial aviation. Maybe most of you are right and it's a safe plane, but maybe it was just a huge luck that none of the Dreamliners caught fire, got exploded or suffered serious accident. It's a brand new type, and as these errors are occuring, you never can tell what else can appear on the long terms.

@gblack: Dittos to everything you said.

@PopSci -- one word: "Credibility". Get some fast! A "science" magazine (your name proclaims that that's what you aspire to be) is nothing without credibility. Mr. Nosowitz is burning through what little credibility you have left. Whoever writes or edits your headlines isn't helping much either.

JJames is not under attack, PaganShadow. He/she is being asked to be consistent with his signature, as follows:

"Always defer to facts rather than philosophy."

The 787's charging system was born in fire: In November 2006, a devastating fire and explosion leveled facilities of Securaplane Technologies, outside Tuscon, AZ. This 3 alarm blaze was only a small episode in a little-told chapter of the Dreamliner's development. The fire tends to underscore the narrative and warnings of a whistleblower employee at Securaplane who had too much integrity to ship flawed hardware to Boeing. With Dreamliner's first flight slipping further away, delays resulted in intense pressure upon suppliers to meet their timelines. As we have seen, Boeing management took the path of rushing the aircraft to market by moving the line on safety at FAA, rather than confronting the daunting challenges and frankly telling investors they needed a 'reset'. The delays snowballed, and the effects rolled downhill rolled downhill...

Securaplane has emerged as a near unmentionable element of the Dreamliner story, but the whistleblower lawsuit and federal records are compelling. Despite pressure from superiors and a contentious and grinding ethics battle with management, Securaplane's Michael Leon was a valued member of the team that developed this extremely unique product for Boeing. In other words, he was a key player, but his conscience got in the way of their delivery schedule. The Li Ion battery packs for the aircraft are an integral part of its systems architecture and their performance impacts the stability of available voltage for flight-critical systems. If you've ever had a smartphone get wacky due to a battery anomaly, you can relate. Unfortunately, the Dreamliner battery system isn't like the one under the hood of your car, nor is it off the shelf. You can't just swap them out like double 'A' batteries for a Mag Light. Worse, the potent Li Ion cells do not avail themselves much to cooling, and at their scale, we are seeing phenomena of scale which reveal their actual performance was poorly modeled, never addressed, and ultimately written off as 'acceptable risk' with the stroke of a pen. The manufacturer, GS Yuasa, makes space-qualified hardware for satellites and has been cleared for use on the ISS. Still, without a charger, a battery is but a paperweight and Boeing's eggs were in one shakily built basket.
While the battery design itself is high risk, and the batteries are located in such a way that their problems can cascade to impact other systems and cannot be physically isolated nor easily rendered safe in the event of thermal runways and other phenomena.
Ironically, with a surplus of heat energy being the greatest problem, no one seems to have worked out that an overtemp battery provides sufficient waste heat to greatly assist thermal management and in effect, can power it's own thermoelectric cooling loop.
Meanwhile, Chip Yates, at Yates Electrospace, expressed dismay last year at the still-in-the-dark views of many top scientists and lab heads; sharing the stage with Dr. Mark Maybury-Chief Scientist, USAF, Yates delivered a rousing presentation and challenge to aviation; all electric flight is in it's infancy, but Yates has had trouble setting batteries on fire. His plan for an all-electric round the world non-stop flight is audacious beyond description until you talk to the man-here's a classic example of excuses crumbling at the hand of innovation. In fact, he's set two world records (motorcycle and airplane, all electric, both over 200 mph) to prove that Li Ion batteries don't have to be feared-they just need proper design and implementation. Knowing this, it's impossible to accept the condescending conventional wisdom or the narrative that Li Ion must always be high risk.
Yates has managed to disprove conventional wisdom with unconventional solutions, and he put his own neck on the line in flight and on the ground to set those records. We last saw such men a century ago, and one can only hope we'll see more innovators take his cue.

In the face of such optimism backed by hard results, one must wonder if any of the current, highly charged situation had to happen at all. When a design gets frozen and a plane designer disavails itself of better solutions in order to meet ambitious milestones, developments still surface.

Breakthroughs have surfaced or been inspired all throughout the history of aviation. Sound design allows for flexibility to integrate new technology while operating from a place of self-directed skepticism towards even the most trusted of techniques and solutions. This balance is part of what makes aerospace engineering such a complex and dynamic world.
Perhaps Boeing execs can sidestep their self-generated crisis by integrating less threatening solutions instead of pleading that the Dreamliner was 'good to go'. Team Boeing and their partners deserve better, and so does the flying public; we're ready. This pilot would love to see the 787's potential realized-after talking with one test pilot who's flown the real thing, it seems worthy of its name. Now, it's waiting for us to make it fly again.

There are, have been, and will be viable, realistic technology paths to deliver the Dreamliner from its current unenviable position-but a more positive outcome won't be had unless the industry first confronts its own ethics model.

Technology can provide solutions only when individuals and organizations are willing to take the first step. Too often, the high tech world of flight gets mired in its own inertia, and sweeping programs like Dreamliner, F-35, others, bog down or are cursed to underperform because the blinders were on.This doesn't have to end badly, but Boeing needs to pick up the pen and write a great ending to this-it's NOT rocket science...

It's time now to go 'visor down' and move forward; there's much work to be done.

Terrible article. I didn't realize the new policy at PopSci is to be afraid of new technologies and to write alarmist articles written by people with little or no understanding of their subject matter.

Mr. Delhomme, thank you for a well reasoned, well-expressed statement.

Does Boeing know what electric cooling fans are?

We (at least the public) really does not know what actually happened to cause the batteries to catch on fire, and the NTSB may not know what happened either as yet.

If this is a case of a poorly designed battery, or charging or cooling systems, then that can probably be corrected. This is relatively new technology and problems can be expected, although proper testing was obviously not done before the planes were delivered to the airlines.

On the other hand, if this is a fundamental engineering problem(s), then perhaps things won't be so easily corrected. A good example of this is the assertion that the batteries are located to close to other vital systems. If this is true, it will be much more difficult to fix.

Still, like them or not, Boeing has a history of building good, reliable airplanes, so I suggest we all calm down and wait until the engineers find out what happened and why, and hopefully find a way to correct the problems. Making assumptions about causes at this point is a waste of time.

I think I read somewhere that part of the problem is that the batteries are NOT overheating. They're catching on fire for some other reason.

As any computer engineer will tell you the more complex it is the more bugs there will be, and the longer they will take to fix, even after they are understood. Worse yet fixing one bug often creates a different one, making several rounds of bug fixing required.

This is totally predictable and expected. Give them some time, test the systems. These are solvable problems. The older the airplane gets the more reliable it will be. There's a reason piper cubs are viewed as bulletproof: The design has been around since the 40's, and has been subtly updated continuously for 50 years.

Personally if it was me I'd label them beta for the moment, and use them to fly cargo for a while, but don't GROUND them! Problems like this are subtle and complex enough that they're probably unduplicatable unless the vehicle is actually in use.

One day this is going to be one freaking hell of an airplane, and anyone making anything vaguely competitive is going to have to go through the same kind problems simply due to the inherent complexity of the system.

This is worth sticking through.

Let's see about all the facts here.

The fuel spill? Overfilling by ground crew.
A cracked window? Not unusual. But where was the crack...which of the many layers?
The burning down of a building? Joint development between auto manufacturers and Boeing...EXPERIMENTAL!!! battery not even close to the actual in the plane.
Japanese airline smoke? Please notice the very first pictures taken. The battery was completely contained in the box designed. Notice that the box with another battery isn't even smudged. Lithium battery problems and danger?? - don't look now but there is probably one sitting next to your delicate parts under your keyboard. Something else caused the smoke---the battery container was not breached or otherwise compromised and the paint scorched but didn't burn and there was no explosion. The Getty picture is of the casing after it was pulled apart.

Little is being written about the exterior controller or the charger. Securaplane Technologies in Tucson, which made the charger; United Technologies Aerospace Systems for a battery controller in Phoenix; and Kanto Aircraft instrument for battery monitoring in Japan. It's the big bad battery because it is the part that took the brunt and looks ugly. Hmmm, batteries don't overcharge themselves.

BTW the landing was precautionary. No control or capability was lost.

As for the FAA. Now why wasn't the A380 grounded or restricted in US airspace? Note all the repeated landing gear failures resulting in major fuselage structural damage?

A brilliant lame duck.

zerox012
I still think it's a brilliant plane that will inspire many others.

A brilliant lame duck.

This article is very helpful for me to select my private airplane

But still, I personally think the 747-8 and Airbus is better

Dreamliner 787 is not a so called "dangerous plane" as describe here in so many post.

Maybe it is not safe enough, but the statistics still rely on one fact : Plane is safer than many other transport facilities.

There are numerous issues, but the Agency did the good job, and they worked hard to show up some relevant problems... but is something very common in the aeronautic industry.

Make sure they won't let fly 787 untill it is safer... and Boeing is going to work back hard on the draw.

For the batteries, the fact is that they heat ( a lot), the liquid is encapsulated in a very soft container, which is then packed into a very much stronger metal box....
problem is : batteries (thousands of them) are stored very next to each other, there is almost no room to evacuate the heat, and if there is a major leak in one (strong enough to deform the metal box) this could lead to a sort of chain reaction, because the metal box which is deformed will occur pressure on the boxes next to each others... and so on.

The risk of fire is somehow very rare, but it could happen, but the shut down of electricity (even without fire) would lead to very embarrassing situation (there are no more "manual" control on that type of planes since many many years :o) (last one was the white goose i think)

Heating is certainly the issue, because the batteries do not heat in a linear way, and it is not proportional of the charge, but of the electrical consumption (the more devices are applying for electricity to be delivered the more the batteries heat)

Maybe by a lack of time or pressure due to respect deliveries issues and competition with other companies, Boeing did not performed enough test with all seats installed, wired, and in function with all the possible electrical devices in use...

If it is one of the major problems (who knows which they Really are) it should be not so complicated to solve.

But always remember that living is a risk of dying, and that flying is still safe and 100% safe will never exist.

Another worthless piece of garbage written by someone with absolutely no technical or aerospace knowledge.

Deeply disgusted to see Popular Science put their name on this.

The author of this article seem to ignore the existance of Airbus A380 the biggest airliner that can transport up to 582 passengers and fly by wire and it use composite material and don't catch in fire. At this time the greatest airliner.

Uhhh...you missed something on the Airbus A380, atomicant. Wing cracks? Sound familiar? The fix is an 8-week long, 30,000 man hour process costing millions. The customers who already took delivery are, to put it mildly, rather unhappy about it.

Like Boeing, Airbus was behind schedule, knew about the potential problems, and delivered the airplane to customers anyway. Despite the problems, the A380 and the 787 are both amazing planes for different reasons. The 787 is the first all-composite airliner with a number of new technologies on board. The whole manufacturing process had to be redesigned; an incredibly daunting process.

New technology is always accompanied by teething pains. The 757, 767, and 777, which used incrementally improved technology, also had problems, as did the Airbus planes. The 787 is a major departure which explains the larger number of problems.

BTW, as of now, no 787 customers have indicated a loss of confidence in Boeing. They expect Boeing will solve the problems and continue to deliver planes.

Look, I'm just as free market as the next guy, but there are two airplane manufacturers in the world, one in the US and one in France.

Now I'm not Anti French by any stretch, I can even appreciate their extra vacation days and relaxed lifestyle. What I'm not sure about is why Popular Science would want to hurt Boeing more than this incident has already damaged their reputation? Can someone explain that to me?

It's absolutely one thing to discuss the problem, possible solutions, and postulate why this might have happened; but it's something completely different to pass on subjective judgment of the entire airplane and company as the title of this article has done.

The fact is that the 787 is the best airplane in the world! Or at least it will be, this time next year. This is an airplane which was built from the ground up for a new world of climate change and reduced carbon footprint. It's the Prius, Leaf, or the Volt of aerospace. It's the Future today.

By saving fuel for each airline it directly benefits all of us, let alone our nation. Airbus took a different path with it's new plane. They wanted the single plane for MASSES of people, for really long flights. This is a commuter plane and it's capable as a distance workhorse. It's the best of both worlds.

Please don't subjectively negative about Boeing, because in doing so you are being negative about the US and us all!

Thank you.

I studied this plane at the EAA flyin at Oshkosh in 2011. What got me about this plane, was first, was it's Bird wing, and made out of Composite material. When you look at this plane flying, the wings flex so much, up to 26 feet! And the wings almost take the shape of a giant "U", Which I have never seen any other aircraft FLEX so much, and when you can take off at ground level at 95 degrees and climb to 50,000 feet at 88 degrees below Zero. That wing is expanding and then contracting at a great rate, and Composite material, can Crack more so, than expand and contract, and I don't think they tested those wings at 88 degrees below Zero! If you go to YOUTUBE, you can see how much these wings flex, the plane has already crack windshields. We don't need another Comet disaster.

Nicolas C.

Probably the simplest safe solution is to add two more sets of batteries in order to reduce heat discharge reaction scarifying two places or more, and everything is going well.

I agree. Double or at least have a 50% surplus of power (on top of, I'm sure, an already built-in surplus).

In either case, I had heard online (via tech chat) that several "insiders" also consider the power control network to be at fault. Not the batteries, themselves, but the software/hardware controllers that are supposed to manage the power flow, battery temperature and other electrical requirements.

At most, they said that the management software requires tweaking (not surprising for new technology!!!) and perhaps additional installation/cooling racks may be implemented for the batteries.

But, what do I know - I'm just an old Army plug - Just use some gun-tape (or a whole frikkin' lot!), but fix this beauty and get it in the air!