B788, Boston MA USA, 2013

B788, Boston MA USA, 2013

Summary

On 7 January 2013, a battery fire on a Japan Air Lines Boeing 787-8 began almost immediately after passengers and crew had left the aircraft after its arrival at Boston on a scheduled passenger flight from Tokyo Narita. The primary structure of the aircraft was undamaged. Investigation found that an internal short circuit within a cell of the APU lithium-ion battery had led to uncontained thermal runaway in the battery leading to the release of smoke and fire. The origin of the malfunction was attributed to system design deficiency and the failure of the type certification process to detect this.

Description

On 7 January 2013, almost immediately after all passengers and crew had disembarked from a Japan Airlines Boeing 787-8 (JA829J) which had just arrived at Boston from Tokyo Narita as JA 008, cleaning staff reported an electrical burning smell and dense smoke in the aft passenger cabin to a maintenance engineer who was in the flight deck. It was quickly found that the source of the smoke was the Lithium-Ion APU battery located in the aft electrical equipment bay where dense smoke and subsequently flames were seen coming from the APU battery case. ARFF intervention successfully controlled the fire with a minor burn injury sustained by one fire fighter.

Thick smoke pouring from the aft electronic equipment bay soon after fire fighters had arrived (reproduced from the Official Report which acknowledges the Boston Herald as the source)

Investigation

An Investigation was carried out by the National Transportation Safety Board (USA) (NTSB).

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