Boeing Updates ZA002 incident investigation

Boeing just put out a press release that give us our first view as to what MAY have been the problem. Boeing is saying that a power control panel in the aft electronics bay will need to be replaced. This doesn't necessarily mean that the power control panel was the cause of the fire. That determination will have to wait until the investigative team has completed it's analysis of the data from ZA002. Boeing is indicating that this may take a few days. It's safe to assume that the 787 test fleet will continue to be on the ground until that time at the very least....perhaps longer if modifications have to be made in some of the systems that have found to cause the fire.

Boeing obviously will not say anything about possible impact to the schedule until the investigation is complete and fixes have been identified. Ground testing will continue on the airplanes while the investigation is on going.

Also Flightblogger has had made several updates with regards to ZA002. You can read them here:

Flightblogger: Flash: 787 test fleet grounded after electrical fire

Here's Boeing's Press Release:

Update on Boeing 787 Dreamliner ZA002 Incident

EVERETT, Wash., Nov. 10, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- During approach to Laredo,Texas, yesterday, airplane ZA002 lost primary electrical power as a result of an onboard electrical fire. Backup systems, including the deployment of the Ram Air Turbine (RAT), functioned as expected and allowed the crew to complete a safe landing. The cause of the fire is still under investigation by Boeing.

The pilots executed a safe landing and at all times had positive control of the airplane and all of the information necessary to perform that safe landing.

Initial inspection appears to indicate that a power control panel in the aft electronics bay will need to be replaced on ZA002. We are inspecting the power panel and surrounding area near that panel to determine if other repairs will be necessary.

We have retrieved flight data from the airplane and are analyzing it in Seattle. This process will take several days. We are committed to finding the cause quickly but will not rush the technical team in its efforts.

The team was conducting monitoring of the Nitrogen Generation System at the time of the incident but there is no reason to suspect that the monitoring or earlier testing of that system had anything to do with the incident.

Consistent with our internal processes, until we better understand the cause of the incident on ZA002, we have decided to postpone flight test activities on other airplanes. Ground test activities will be conducted until flight test resumes.

Likewise, we cannot determine the impact of this event on the overall program schedule until we have worked our way through the data. Teams have been working through the night and will continue to work until analysis is complete and a path forward is determined.

ZA002 news

There is not too much to add though unsurprisingly Boeing has decided to suspend 787 test flights until they find the root cause of thee fire and implement a fix. How long and what impact that will have is unknown but data from the airplane has been sent to Seattle for analysis.

I anticipate that they would be able to narrow down the cause of the fire in a fairly short amount of time but we shall see. Flightblogger posted that all test flights are off until Thursday at the earliest and the test flight airplanes will conduct ground tests. Guy Norris also put up a detailed post about the disposition of the test flight fleet and what ground tests they will be conducting. Lastly, Dominic Gates has an excellent recap of yesterday's events.

Boeing was in midst of aggressively test flying the 787s over the past month and was on track to post high utilization rate of the test flight fleet as well as posting higher flight test hours month over month. This incident no doubt slows them down.



Boeing spokesperson, Lori Gunter sent out the following release, what is interesting is that the aircraft did not lose primary flight display:

In regards to requests for additional information regarding the incident on
ZA002 in Laredo, TX, today, Boeing can confirm the following:

* ZA002 departed from Yuma, AZ, bound for Laredo, TX. - 42 crew members were
on board the airplane in support of the flight test program.
* One minor injury occurred during the evacuation. That crew member has since cleared medical approval and has left the medical facilities.
* During the flight from Yuma, the crew was conducting a test to monitor the efficiency of the Nitrogen Generation System. - During the event, the crew was collecting system performance data and no additional testing was being performed.
* Contrary to some reports, the pilot did not lose primary flight displays.
* Data from the airplane is being transported from Texas to Seattle so that our experts can understand what happened prior to, during and after the event. This will take some time to accomplish. Until that is completed, we cannot offer further information regarding the event.

Update: ZA002 had fire in aft electric bay

So what do we know:

ZA002 was flying a test flight to test the NGS system on a 6 plus hour flight that was to terminate at Valley Airport in Harlingen, Tx. As the flight was preparing to land a fire broke out in the aft electronics bay under the passenger cabin. The fire had knocked out the auto throttle and the primary flight displays. The Ram Air Turbine (RAT) was then deployed to provide power to control the aircraft. After the aircraft landed in Laredo, the pilot deployed the emergency slides and the 30-40 people who were on board evacuated with 1 possible slightly injured.

Obviously it is too early to tell what had happened and what equipment was the cause of the fire as well as how long it will take to repair the aircraft and get it back in to the test flight program. Obviously, it is also too early to tell what impact this will have on the flight test program though I do anticipate that it will have an impact. It is worth noting that 787s were still flying after this incident though it is possible that Boeing did not know the severity of the problem until well after the test flights had landed. ZA001 flew from Boeing Field to Rapid City, SD and was to continue with more test flights but did not. ZA004 also flew out of Boeing Field and was to fly to Rapid City but was diverted back to Boeing Field. ZA005 was flying over the Pacific on what was to be a 10 - 11 hour NAMS test flight. It landed about 4 hours ago well short of that goal. Clearly it seems that Boeing may be grounding, temporarily, the 787 test flight fleet until they know what happened and what corrective measures have to be taken. It is known if the fire originated in flight test equipment or on one of the 787 systems. Hamilton Sundstrand is assisting Boeing with the investigation. My feeling it may have originated in one of the 787s systems. However, Guy Norris of Aviation Week is saying that only ZA002 is being taken out of service

Concerns:
A major concern was the fire knocked out power to the flight displays and the auto throttle. Because the aircraft is an all electric architecture instead of the traditional hydraulic/pneumatic systems this incident may raise concerns.

I will update this story as I learn more.

I've linked to the other usual suspects who are reporting on this story:

Flightblogger: Smoke in ZA002's cabin forces evacuation

Guy Norris: 787 grounded after smoke in cabin

Dominic Gates: Electrical fire forces emergency landing of 787 test plane

Aubrey Cohen: Boeing 787 lands with smoke in cabin, crew evacuates