"Are we confident that there will never, ever be another battery failure? The answer to that is: parts fail," Mike Sinnett, the chief project engineer on the 787, said. "We know that someday a battery may fail. We need to make sure that there is no significant impact at the airplane level when it does."
TOKYO — The grounded Dreamliner is "absolutely" safe and will be back in the air within weeks, Boeing (IW 500/16) said in Japan on Friday as it sought to reassure airlines and passengers about the aircraft.
The 50 planes grounded around the world since two lithium-ion battery malfunctions sparked a global no-fly order in mid-January will undergo fixes to their systems and be operational again soon, senior executives said.
"I get often asked if I think the airplane is still safe. My answer is simple: absolutely," Mike Sinnett, the chief project engineer on the 787, told reporters.
The Dreamliner "is among the safest airplanes our company has ever produced,” he added.
Ray Connor, president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said measures the company had put in place and which were now undergoing flight testing would put the aircraft back in the skies.
"We are going to be dependent upon (moving) through the certification process. We will determine when we actually get back in the air in terms of flights," he said.
"Previously as I have been anticipating that in months, we are talking more along the line of weeks," he said.
