787 battery fire probe points to a cell
2013-02-07 21:21
Washington - US air safety investigators have identified
how a battery fire on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner occurred last month but have not
discovered the cause, the head of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)
said on Thursday.
NTSB chairperson Deborah Hersman said evidence pointed to
a single cell on the eight-cell lithium-ion battery on a parked Japanese
Airlines 787 at Boston's Logan airport.
There were multiple signs of short-circuiting in the
cell, which led to an uncontrollable rise in temperatures, or thermal runaway,
to adjacent cells, Hersman said.
"We are now working to identify the cause of the
short circuit on cell six," she said at a news conference to update her
agency's probe of the 7 January incident.
The battery fire, and a burnt battery that forced an All
Nippon Airways 787 flight into an emergency landing on 16 January, resulted in
the global grounding of all 50 787s in service until the problem is fixed.
