Welcome to the story that will never end-in a new twist to the Boeing Dreamliner saga, Japan's Civil Aviation Bureau is now sending their investigators to Seattle, where Boeing assembles the Dreamliner, to look into the problems with the now infamous Lithium-Ion batteries.
The Transport Ministry said "members of the team working on the investigation would leave Tokyo on Sunday for Seattle. It provided no further details [sic]," according to USA Today.
These investigators will join agents from The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, The National Transportation Safety Board and Boeing who dispatched their people to join the epic-inquisition a few weeks back.
It is now the job of these gumshoes' combined efforts to figure out how and why the lithium-ion batteries overheated and to come up with plausible ways to fix the dilemma.
The FAA still hasn't lifted the grounding ban on all 50 Boeing Dreamliner (most of which belong to All Nippon Airways, of Japan) and will not take any action until the results of the now multifaceted investigation are revealed.
"We don't know what is causing these incidents yet. These are expert people. They'll get to the bottom of it and then we'll let all of you know what they find out," Federal Aviation Administration chief Michael Huerta told reporters at an industry event in Washington on Wednesday, according to CNN.
The only thing that all involved do know is that "a battery fire on a flight in Boston, January 7, resulted in the FAA putting the Dreamliner under a review process, but still let the plane fly, stating, "the plane was still safe to fly," according to CNN.
Then, on January 16, after an emergency landing by an All Nippon Airways flight in Japan-triggered by a battery warning alarm, caused regulators, worldwide, to order the $200 million Dreamliner out-of-action, until further notice.
Boeing however is still determined to continue their production of the Dreamliner, the company said, "problems with the lithium-ion batteries on the plane haven't changed their plans to step up production of the sophisticated jetliner," reported USA Today.
"The company is working with investigators at the National Transportation Safety Board, their Japanese counterparts, the Federal Aviation Administration and now even Japan's Civil Aviation Bureau, to find the problem that caused battery fires on two planes earlier last month.
"Boeing experts and investigators are working around the clock. We will get to the bottom of this and in so doing, we will restore confidence in the 787 and Boeing," said Boeing's CEO Jim McNerney during a conference call, according to USA Today.
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