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Boeing Co's effort to get its troubled 787 Dreamliner back in the air is headed for a challenging final hurdle: It needs approval from the US agency that's already been burned by signing off on the plane's safety.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is under scrutiny for clearing the 787 in 2007, only to reverse itself after lithium-ion batteries overheated on two jets. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, whose agency includes the FAA, declared the planes safe days before they were ordered parked. FAA officials will face the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) this month to explain their initial decision.
Boeing needs the FAA to end a January 16 grounding order so deliveries can resume from an order book valued at almost $190 billion. Politics, not just safety, will weigh on the agency as it reviews the Dreamliner's battery redesign and test-flight data, said John McGraw, an aerospace consultant.
Boeing has to restart deliveries to pare a backlog of about 800 planes, with a list price starting at $206.8 million. The Chicago-based planemaker has sent teams to Japan, where ANA Holdings Inc and Japan Airlines Co fly almost half of the 49 planes in service, to prepare to install new battery units.
'Really fast'
"This will move really fast in terms of being able to get the airplanes back into the air" once the FAA approves the reworked batteries, Boeing Commercial Airplanes President Ray Conner said at a conference last month.
Regulators won't be rushed, according to LaHood, who said at an April 5 conference in Washington that Boeing must convince the FAA that the battery fix is safe before flights can resume. The 787 may be his last major decision as he prepares to leave after four years on the job. "We want to get it right," LaHood said. "We want to make sure that everything's done correctly. We want to be able to assure the flying public that these planes are safe."
Boeing completed certification tests that day for the new battery system, flying a 787 with two FAA officials aboard after a series of ground trials.
"We are engaged with the FAA to reply to additional requests and continue dialogue to ensure we have met all of their expectations," Marc Birtel, a Boeing spokesman, said yesterday in an email response to questions. He declined to comment on the submission of test results, which Boeing said would be turned in to the agency "in the coming days."
The design and certification of the cells for the Dreamliner in 2007, including the FAA's role, will be the focus of a two-day NTSB hearing starting April 23. The batteries were certified under "special conditions," which are rules the FAA creates for new technology.
Today's hearing
At another NTSB hearing today, on the use of lithium-ion batteries in transportation, Chairman Debbie Hersman said the cells have an inherent risk, like gasoline in automobiles.
Dan Doughty, president of Battery Safety Consulting Inc in Albuquerque, New Mexico, said those hazards are dwindling as the technology matures.
Next week, the Dreamliner probably will come up when the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee holds a hearing to discuss the FAA's progress on safety initiatives.
LaHood, 67, a former seven-term Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois, has played a prominent role since the Dreamliner's batteries came under scrutiny with a Jan. 7 fire on a Japan Airlines 787.
At a January 11 news conference, he and FAA chief Michael Huerta declared the plane safe. Less than a week afterward, an ANA 787's battery began smouldering and spewing vapour above Japan, prompting an emergency landing and then the grounding.
LaHood's involvement in the 787 decision escalates pressure on the FAA, said John Nance, a Seattle-based aviation-safety consultant and former commercial pilot.
"The FAA is totally risk-averse," Nance said. "This is an intolerable situation."
