After the Boeing 787 had several Lithium aircraft battery incidents, the FAA grounded the airplane for some months until Boeing developed new systems to protect the batteries and the airplane.
During the 787 grounding, my always helpful friends asked whether my airplane had a lithium battery. I said - Yes - in the ELT - there are two of them.
Now, there has been another fire related to Lithium batteries on the 787 - those in the ELT. They apparently started a fire in a parked 787 at London-Heathrow - and generated this interim report today:
"On Jul 18th 2013 the AAIB reported in their special bulletin with respect to ET-AOP, that fire fighters encountered a fire above the ceiling panels close to the rear of the cabin, a halon extinguisher was not effective, only after a panel was moved and the fire was doused with water and foam the fire was extinguished. The origin of the fire coincided with the emergency locator transmitter (ELT), with no other systems in the vicinity storing sufficient energy to initiate a fire. The ELT is powered by a set of Lithium Manganese Dioxide Batteries, which showed disruptions of cells. It is unclear however whether the combustion started as result of energy release within the battery cells or by an outside event like a short circuit. Some 6000 units of this transmitter have been produced, ET-AOP is the only such incident so far. The AAIB recommended to the FAA to "inert" (deactivate) the ELTs in Boeing 787s until appropriate airworthiness actions can be taken and to conduct a safety review of all Lithium battery powered ELTs on all aircraft types."
Now, back to our humble little RV-12s - we have ELTs - made by Cobham - and they have two lithium batteries - and they use the same Lithium Manganese Dioxide chemistry as the Honeywell units on the 787. Might be the exact same batteries.
The above is an FYI - you see, we are right up there with the Big Boys now, and could possibly see some sort of regulatory fallout from this situation.
Bob Bogash
N737G
During the 787 grounding, my always helpful friends asked whether my airplane had a lithium battery. I said - Yes - in the ELT - there are two of them.
Now, there has been another fire related to Lithium batteries on the 787 - those in the ELT. They apparently started a fire in a parked 787 at London-Heathrow - and generated this interim report today:
"On Jul 18th 2013 the AAIB reported in their special bulletin with respect to ET-AOP, that fire fighters encountered a fire above the ceiling panels close to the rear of the cabin, a halon extinguisher was not effective, only after a panel was moved and the fire was doused with water and foam the fire was extinguished. The origin of the fire coincided with the emergency locator transmitter (ELT), with no other systems in the vicinity storing sufficient energy to initiate a fire. The ELT is powered by a set of Lithium Manganese Dioxide Batteries, which showed disruptions of cells. It is unclear however whether the combustion started as result of energy release within the battery cells or by an outside event like a short circuit. Some 6000 units of this transmitter have been produced, ET-AOP is the only such incident so far. The AAIB recommended to the FAA to "inert" (deactivate) the ELTs in Boeing 787s until appropriate airworthiness actions can be taken and to conduct a safety review of all Lithium battery powered ELTs on all aircraft types."
Now, back to our humble little RV-12s - we have ELTs - made by Cobham - and they have two lithium batteries - and they use the same Lithium Manganese Dioxide chemistry as the Honeywell units on the 787. Might be the exact same batteries.
The above is an FYI - you see, we are right up there with the Big Boys now, and could possibly see some sort of regulatory fallout from this situation.
Bob Bogash
N737G
