JAL Dreamliner flight forced back to Boston

TOKYO — Pilots aborted a Japanese-operated Dreamliner flight from Boston to Tokyo after cockpit warnings of a fuel pump malfunction, just days after a fire on a parked plane in London sparked fresh safety fears.

The Boeing 787 has resumed flying after a months-long grounding for serious battery problems, but British aviation bosses have now recommended emergency beacons in all Dreamliners be disabled, pointing to the devices as a possible fire risk.

Analysts warned Friday that the growing catalogue of mishaps could spell trouble for Boeing’s flagship aircraft because of doubts among the flying public about the next-generation plane.

In the latest incident, a Japan Airlines (JAL) plane left from Boston’s Logan Airport at 12:57 p.m. on Thursday (12:57 am Friday in Manila) , but returned about five hours later. The carrier said the turnaround was not an emergency situation.

“As a standard precautionary measure due to a maintenance message (fuel pump) indicator, JL007 bound for Tokyo-Narita decided to return to Boston Logan for check and landed safely,” Carol Anderson, a US-based JAL spokeswoman, told AFP in an email.

Last Friday, a 787 flown by Ethiopian Airlines caught fire at London’s Heathrow airport.

No one was aboard the parked plane at the time of the incident, which prompted British authorities to recommend that distress beacons on board all Boeing Dreamliners be disabled.

On Friday, JAL officials in Tokyo confirmed the maintenance message but dismissed concerns that the aborted flight might signal a new problem for the plane.

“We decided to return as a precaution… as a message showing a malfunction of a fuel pump at the right engine appeared in the cockpit,” said a JAL spokesman.

Even if the pump was faulty, there was no safety risk as the engine has a back-up mechanism, he said.

“There’s no emergency at all in this case. We just wanted to be on the safe side,” he said, adding that “this has nothing to do with the battery system”.

The US Federal Aviation Administration said the pilot did not declare an emergency as he returned to Boston.

JAL and rival All Nippon Airways (ANA), the Dreamliner’s biggest customers, have experienced a growing list of complaints with the 787 since it was allowed to resume flying.

Makiko Nakagawa, aviation analyst at Fukoku Capital Management, warned that the incidents could exacerbate concern among passengers.

“The recent troubles are not significant enough to lead to a major blow such as suspending operations, but the psychological impact is not so small,” she told AFP.

“That’s partially because media coverage of the Dreamliner has been quite extensive.”

All 50 Boeing 787s in service were grounded in mid-January after a battery fire on one plane parked at the Boston airport. In a separate incident, smoke from a battery aboard an ANA flight in Japan forced an emergency landing.

After months of investigation, US authorities in April formally approved Boeing’s battery fix and Japanese regulators followed suit, allowing the Dreamliner to return to the skies.

The plane’s Japanese battery supplier, GS Yuasa, has voiced confidence about the fixed system.

“Similar problems will never happen again,” GS Yuasa president Makoto Yoda told the Asahi newspaper in an interview published Thursday.