Japan Airlines-JAL‘s (Tokyo) flight JL 8 with a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner (JA829J) arrived from Tokyo (Narita) at Boston (Logan) this morning at 10 a.m. (1000). The 173 arriving passengers and 11 crew members had just disembarked according to this report by the Boston Globe. The cleaners who boarded the aircraft reported smelling smoke and a fire was discovered in the lower level battery compartment. The airport ARFF units put out the fire out before it could spread.

Boeing has been investigating electrical issues on other 787 Dreamliners and has issued the following statement:

Regarding Monday’s event onboard a Japan Airlines (JAL) 787 at Boston Logan Airport, we are working closely with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), our customer and other government agencies. JAL has reported that smoke detected while a 787 was on the ground after passengers disembarked and during cleaning was traced to the battery used to start the auxiliary power unit (APU).

As is standard practice within the industry, it would be premature to discuss additional details at this stage as the investigation is ongoing. However, nothing that we’ve seen in this case indicates a relationship to any previous 787 power system events, which involved power panel faults elsewhere in the aft electrical equipment bay. Information about the prior events has been shared with the NTSB and they are aware of the details.

Boeing is cooperating with the NTSB in the investigation of this incident. Before providing more detail, we will give our technical teams the time they need to do a thorough job and ensure we are dealing with facts, not speculation.

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