Boeing’s proposed fix for the 787 is a permanent solution that will ensure the aircraft’s safe and reliable operation, Boeing Commercial Airplanes VP-marketing Randy Tinseth said Monday.
Speaking at the ISTAT Americas 2013 conference in Orlando, Tinseth said more than 200 Boeing experts were working with FAA and the Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB) to get the 787 Dreamliner back up and flying.
The 787 has been grounded since mid-January after two safety incidents, one in the US and the other in Japan, occurred and both were related to the aircraft’s lithium ion batteries. Boeing presented its fix to FAA in February. The proposal has not been made public, but it is believed to be based on continued use of lithium ion batteries and will address both the battery overheating issue and fire or smoke containment in the event of an overheating event.
“We shared our proposed solution with FAA and JTSB,” Tinseth said. “It’s a permanent fix for the problem.”
Speaking to ATW before the conference, Boeing Capital Corp. Capital Markets Development MD Kostya Zolotusky said that technologically the 787 issue was no different from those previous new aircraft had experienced as they entered service. “The difference is the reaction and the speed of the reaction,” he said.
Zolotusky said Boeing’s decision to continue producing 787s—although deliveries have been suspended during the grounding—was based on the company’s confidence that the fix will be easy to retrofit.