Japan Airlines (JAL) has temporarily suspended operations of its Boeing 787 fleet following Tuesday’s emergency landing by an All Nippon Airways (ANA) 787-8 that led ANA to ground all of its Dreamliners.
ANA has confirmed the incident involved a battery indicator message while the aircraft was at 30,000 ft. and that it was later discovered the aircraft’s main battery had leaked.
The US National Transportation Safety Board is investigating last week’s fire on a parked JAL 787 at Boston Logan Airport and has focused its attention on the lithium ion battery used to start the aircraft’s auxiliary power unit.
The ANA event has been registered as “a serious incident” by the Japanese Transport Ministry and is being investigated by the Japan Transport Safety Board.
FAA launched a full review of the 787’s design and manufacture last week.
According to a statement, ANA flight NH692 was flying from Yamaguchi Ube to Haneda when aircraft indicators showed messages related to the battery. “There was also an unusual smell in the cockpit as well as in the cabin and the flight made an emergency landing at Takamatsu Airport,” ANA said.
“Later it was confirmed that the main battery in the forward electronic equipment bay was discolored and the electrolysis solution had leaked,” ANA said.
The aircraft made an emergency landing at Takamatsu at 8:47 a.m. local time Jan. 16. The 129 passengers, two pilots and six cabin crew onboard evacuated via the aircraft’s emergency slides.
“Two passengers suffered minor abrasions when sliding down the emergency slide,” ANA said.
“Operations of JAL’s 787-8 aircraft from Jan.18 will be decided after further assessment of the situation with the investigations,” JAL said.