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The Daily Mail is out with a troubling yet somewhat absurd claim that both American Airlines and United Airlines have Boeing 777s with potential electrical faults that could cause fuel tanks to catch fire and explode. My first question is: how have these planes have been flying for up to 30 years without this issue surfacing? And, is The Daily Mail sensationalizing something that doesn’t need to be made to cause panic.
According to the British tabloid, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported the issue back in March and requested that Boeing respond by May 9th. A Boeing spokesperson released this statement:
[The FAA’s notice was part of a] standard regulatory process that has helped ensure air travel is the safest form of transportation. This is not an immediate safety of flight issue. There are multiple redundancies designed into modern commercial airplanes to ensure protection for electromagnetic effects. The 777 fleet has been operating for nearly 30 years, and has safely flown more than 3.9 billion passengers.”
The FAA released its “Airworthiness Directives” report in March. It warned of a static electricity risk near the center-wing fuel tanks. The March 25th notice was for a “proposed rulemaking.” It sought comment from Boeing and others before it formally mandated any proposed fixes to the 777 aircraft. It’s predicted that the cost to fix all 292 Boeing 777s registered in the United States $698,000.
The Daily Mail continues:
The FAA specifically requested that new ‘electrical bonding’ and ‘grounding’ be installed to prevent short circuiting or ‘electrostatic discharge’ around an air intake system near the 777’s center-wing fuel tanks.
The federal agency had based its proposal for this critical fix on its own review of a public notice by the aircraft maker, technically known as ‘Boeing Alert Requirements Bulletin 777–47A0007 RB, dated November 21, 2023.’
But, per the FAA’s March 2024 notice, the agency issued its own proposal for a new directive because ‘the unsafe condition described previously is likely to exist or develop on other products of the same type design.'”
Boeings 777 aircraft are among the best-selling commercial planes in the world. This latest report comes at a time when the aircraft manufacturer is already suffering from bad public perception and a slate of real issues with several of its other aircraft models. Its manufacturing and other processes have been called into question and are currently being investigated. The most news-grabbing incident occurred back on January 6th when a plug used to block an unused emergency exit door blew off in flight and caused phones and even a teenager’s shirt to be sucked out of the aircraft (more here).
Anthony’s Take: This is one report around aircraft that have been flying for as many as 30 years. I’m not going to worry or try to induce panic. This seems like a fix is needed on a system that has multiple redundancies and is being recommended out of an abundance of caution versus some immediate need based on an emergency.
(Featured Image Credit: Boeing.)
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
2 comments
I’m not defending the headline, but it is literally true as static electricity did in fact cause a TWA 747 to explode in mid-air killing all aboard despite that it and all 747s had been flying without issue for 25 years without it having happened before. This might be a tiny risk with a small probability, but the the ramifications of that small probability are absolutely massive and it’s hardly wrong to treat this as important despite the fact that it never happened before to this aircraft.
Yet you seem to happily repost this claptrap. Shame on you.