SEATTLE — All Nippon Airways temporarily grounded its entire fleet of 17 Boeing 787 Dreamliners Wednesday morning in Japan after smoke was observed on one of the jets in flight and the pilot made an emergency landing, according to Japanese media.
An ANA official said all 787 flights Wednesday are canceled.
Japan Airlines spokeswoman Carol Anderson said that airline has also temporarily grounded its fleet of 7 Dreamliners because of the ANA incident.
“To ensure safety, JAL has decided to cancel its 787 operations today, Jan. 16 (Tokyo time),” Anderson said in an email.
Japanese television station NHK showed video of the stricken 787 with its emergency slides deployed.
The plane was carrying 129 passengers and 8 crew members. No one was hurt.
At 8:10 a.m. local time, the Dreamliner took off from Yamaguchi in western Japan headed for Haneda airport in Tokyo, a 90-minute flight. The pilot diverted to Takamatsu airport, landing there at 8:45 a.m.
ANA said the smoke was in the cockpit and there was a warning of a battery problem, according to Japanese media. The local city fire department said there was no fire.
Boeing spokeswoman Lori Gunter said only that “we are aware of the event and working with our customer.”
The incident comes just eight days after a battery fire broke out on an empty JAL 787 that had just landed at Logan International Airport in Boston after a 12-hour flight from Tokyo.
That followed a series of lesser electrical problems, including one that diverted a United flight out of Houston in December. Those faults were traced to flawed circuit boards in electrical power distribution panels.
The repeated incidents and the seriousness of a fire on an airplane prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to announce last week a major review of the safety of the 787’s electrical systems.
A team of technical experts based in Seattle is to examine both the design of the jet and quality control during production, both at Boeing and its suppliers around the world.
ANA, which ordered 66 Dreamliners in total, is the launch customer for the new jet and was the first to take delivery in September 2011.
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787s DELIVERED BY BOEING:
—All Nippon Airways: 17
—United Airlines: 6
—Air India: 6
—Japan Airlines: 7
—Qatar Airways: 5
—Ethiopian Airlines: 4
—LAN Airlines: 3
—LOT Polish Airlines: 2
SOURCE: Boeing Co.
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