Japan's Boeing 787 probe looking at overheated battery

[TOKYO] Japanese investigators probing a lithium-ion battery meltdown on a Boeing Co 787 jetliner a year ago are looking at a battery that overheated on a Dreamliner in Tokyo this month to help unlock the cause of the earlier fire, an official from the Japan Transport Safety Board said yesterday.

The incident on board an ANA Holdings 787 a year ago left the battery charred and deformed, destroying evidence that would have pointed to a cause. The latest event on a parked Japan Airlines in a redesigned battery packed with insulation destroyed only one of eight cells. "The remaining seven cells are untouched, and I think that is where the investigation will focus," Masahiro Kudo, the lead investigator on the ANA battery said during a press briefing.

That overheating and one a few days earlier on a 787 parked at Boston's Logan airport prompted aviation regulators in the US, Japan and elsewhere to ground the global fleet of Dreamliners for more than three months.