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London’s Heathrow Airport Closed After Dreamliner 787 Fire

Helene Imperiale |
July 12, 2013 | 10:26 a.m. PDT

Executive Producer

London’s Heathrow airport has closed its runways after a fire started on a 787 Dreamliner jet. 

The Ethiopian Airlines  Dreamliner 787 was parked with no passengers on board when a fire on board began. The plane was purchased and delivered to Ethiopian Airlines in November of 2012. The plane arrived Friday at Heathrow from Addis Ababa. The aircraft was set to make the return flight to Addis Adaba later today. 

In January fifty Dreamliner’s around the world were grounded due to battery malfunctions. Boeing dealt with the issues and installed new batteries in the jets, letting flights resume in April. However, it is still unclear whether the battery caused this fire, which was the cause of the previous fires on Dreamliner aircrafts. However, Boeing’s 787 batteries were resigned to be more fire retardant. 

The spokesman from Heathrow airport stated,  “We can confirm there has been an on-board internal fire involving an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft and the airport's emergency services are in attendance. The aircraft was parked on a remote parking stand. There were no passengers on board and there are no reported injuries at this time. Arrivals and departures are temporarily suspended while airport fire crews attend to this incident. This is a standard procedure if fire crews are occupied with an incident."

A spokesperson from Boeing said, “We're aware of the event. We have Boeing personnel on the ground at Heathrow and are working to fully understand and address this.”



 

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