Latest incidents keep spotlight on Boeing 787

NEW YORK (AFP) ― Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner airplane continued to face scrutiny Friday following recent incidents, but the company described them as normal growing pains for a young aircraft.

The aircraft has been under the spotlight since the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and other regulators grounded the aircraft globally for three months earlier this year due to overheating batteries.

An aviation source told AFP Friday that a 787 operated by Qatar Airways had been grounded in Doha since Monday due to a problem with an electrical panel.

A Qatar Airways spokesman in London said the company “is aware of a very minor incident which has been resolved” and refused to comment further or provide details.

Other media accounts described a fire aboard an Air India 787. Air India rated the episode a “minor incident,” according to one report.

Japan’s All Nippon Airways said Friday that it found damage to the battery wiring on 787 emergency locator beacons, the same device suspected of causing a fire on an Ethiopian Airlines 787 parked at London’s Heathrow airport this month.

“We have found small damage to the covering of the battery wiring in two Emergency Locator Transmitters,” said an ANA spokesman.

Boeing declined to comment on the incidents individually, referring questions to the respective airline.

“The 787 is a great airplane and we know it will continue to receive heightened attention when reliability events occur in service,” said a Boeing spokeswoman.

“Every new airplane experiences early in-service component reliability issues. Overall 787 in-service performance continues on par with the Boeing 777 experience at the same time frame following its introduction,” the spokeswoman said.

“That said, we continue to focus on the 787’s reliability improvement efforts.”

The 787 has had its share of disappointments since its creation. The plane finally made its service debut in October 2011 after several years of production delays.

The biggest crisis came earlier this year when regulators grounded the plane in mid-January following two battery overheating incidents that caused a fire on a Japan Airlines 787 parked at Boston’s Logan airport and smoke that forced an ANA aircraft into an emergency landing.