Boeing won’t axe Dreamliner battery

Boeing said it would continue to speed up production of its 787 and saw no reason to drop the troubled lithium-ion batteries at the centre of the plane’s problems.

By The Newsroom

Published 31st Jan 2013, 17:18 BST

A fire and emergency landing earlier this month, both involving the batteries, prompted regulators to ground Boeing’s newest and highest-profile plane, known as the Dreamliner. Nippon Airways said on Wednesday that it replaced batteries 10 times before the overheating problems surfaced earlier this month.

Boeing chief executive Jim McNerney said airlines had been replacing 787 batteries at a rate “slightly higher” than Boeing had expected. They had all been replaced for maintenance reasons, not safety concerns, he said.

US aviation chiefs have asked Boeing for a full operating history of the batteries on the 787s.

Mr McNerney said “good progress” was being made in finding the cause of the problems, but could not say when the plane would get back in the air.