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U.S. NTSB reviewing whistleblower claims in 787 case WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is looking at issues raised by more than one whistleblower as it investigates battery failures that have grounded the global fleet of 50 Boeing Co (BA.N) 787 Dreamliners for a week. Michael Leon, one of the whistleblowers, said he spoke with an NTSB investigator this week and gave him extensive materials about his claim that he was fired around six years ago for raising safety concerns about Securaplane Technologies Inc., an Arizona company that makes chargers for the highly flammable lithium-ion batteries at the heart of the probe. In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday and in earlier court papers, Leon said Securaplane was rushing to ship chargers that by his assessment did not conform to specifications and could have malfunctioned. A federal administrative judge later dismissed Leon's complaints after concluding he was fired for repeated misconduct, according to court documents. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) concluded that the pieces of equipment he complained about were never installed in the aircraft, as they were prototypes. Leon appealed the federal court's ruling in 2011, but no decision has been reached. Now the NTSB is taking a closer look at some safety concerns people have previously raised as part of a widening investigation by U.S., Japanese and French authorities into two 787 battery failures this month. One involved a fire on a parked 787 at Boston airport, the other forced a second 787 to make an emergency landing in Japan. Kelly Nantel, NTSB director of public affairs, confirmed the NTSB was pursuing information provided by "more than one" whistleblower, but declined comment on any specific cases. "We have been notified about whistleblowers and are pursuing that information where warranted," Nantel told Reuters, adding it was "not uncommon" for individuals to come forward with information during such investigations. The number and identity of other possible whistleblowers being interviewed in the 787 case remained unclear. PLANT VISIT A team of U.S. safety investigators this week visited the Tucson, Arizona facility of Securaplane, a unit of Britain's Meggitt Plc (MGGT.L), where Leon worked before he was fired. The company declined comment on the NTSB investigation, but spokeswoman Fiona Greig told Reuters in an email: "There is no connection between the Dreamliner battery issue and Michael Leon's dismissal from Securaplane." Boeing says a two-year multi-agency investigation concluded that an explosion that sparked a huge fire that burned a three-story administrative building to the ground at the Securaplane facility in 2006 was caused by an improper test set-up, not the battery design. The Senate Commerce, Technology and Transportation Committee said on Tuesday that it plans a hearing on aviation safety in coming weeks that will look closely at the Boeing 787 problems and the FAA's certification process. Representative Rick Larsen, who was appointed this week to be the top Democrat on the House Aviation Subcommittee, told Reuters his committee would probably look at the FAA's certification issues as well. Peter Knudson, spokesman for the NTSB, declined comment on any findings from the visit to Securaplane's Tucson facility. He said the safety board collected information from a variety of sources during the course of any investigation. "We're looking at everything that could have played some role in this battery mishap," he told Reuters. "There's a lot yet to learn." RUSH TO DELIVER? Leon, a 53-year old ex-paratrooper, claimed in his whistleblower case that he was unfairly targeted, racially profiled and ultimately fired after raising concerns that Securaplane wanted to ship battery chargers to Boeing that did not conform to product specifications. The company denied the allegations. Securaplane hired Leon as a senior engineering technician in 2004, the same year it won the contract to work on the 787 parts. The company, which was taken over by Meggitt in April 2011, makes three important battery-related systems for the 787 as a subcontractor to France's Thales SA (TCFP.PA). The lithium-ion battery is made by Japan's GS Yuasa Corp (6674.T), while Thales is responsible for electric power conversion on the 787, the world's newest and most electricity-driven airliner. The auxiliary power unit (APU), which powers the airplane's systems when it is on the ground, is built by a unit of United Technologies Corp (UTX.N). The Securaplane spokeswoman declined to give details about the value of the company's contract with Thales for work on the 787, saying those details were confidential. She said she was not aware of any other whistleblower case filed by a Meggitt or Securaplane employee. Securaplane said it makes two battery charging units used on the 787, one for the APU battery in an aft bay, and one for the main ship battery used in a forward bay, which provides backup power for flight critical controls. WORKFORCE "RATTLED" In his lawsuit, and in the interview with Reuters, Leon said he raised concerns about the safety of the lithium-ion battery that he was using for testing about two weeks before it suddenly exploded in November 2006. Leon said he tried to put out the fire using halon, a liquefied compressed gas, but parts of the battery kept reigniting. The fire "rattled the workforce" at Securaplane, according to the judge who dismissed Leon's claim, after concluding that Securaplane had proved Leon was fired for repeated misconduct, including hostile behavior, not any safety complaints, court documents show. Leon said he refused to ship chargers that he believed had short-circuits, but company officials told him they needed to rush out the orders or risk losing the contract with Thales. Company officials have repeatedly disputed his account. The FAA looked into Leon's complaints in 2008 and 2009, but concluded that the equipment he had expressed concerns about were prototypes that were never installed on the 787, spokesman Laura Brown said. She added the FAA also determined that Securaplane's production of a particular printed circuit board complied with FAA requirements. Back to Top

FAA: No timetable for returning Boeing 787s to skies TOKYO/WASHINGTON - Japanese regulators have joined their U.S. counterparts in all but ruling out overcharged batteries as the cause of recent fires on the Boeing Co 787 Dreamliner, which has been grounded for a week with no end in sight. Solving the battery issue has become the primary focus of the investigation, though the head of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said on Wednesday there are still no firm answers as to the cause and no clear timetable yet for returning the plane to flight. Meanwhile, as deliveries of the cutting-edge passenger jet back up, a key Chinese customer lamented the delays and said its growth plans were being hampered by its inability to get the planes on time. Regulators grounded the Dreamliner on Jan. 16 after a series of safety incidents, including battery fires on planes in the United States and Japan. The Japanese incident forced a plane to make an emergency landing. Last weekend the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said the fire on a Japan Airlines Co Ltd 787 in Boston was not due to excess voltage, and on Wednesday, Japanese officials all but ruled it out for the incident on an All Nippon Airways Co Ltd plane there. "On the surface, it appears there was no overcharging," said Norihiro Goto, chairman of the Japan Transport Safety Board, at a media briefing. "The fact that such electrical system-related incidents would occur consecutively, purely from my perspective, could not have been expected. We are finding it difficult trying to figure out what kind of investigative stance we should take." Late Wednesday, the NTSB said more tests are underway on the battery damaged in the Boston fire, including CT scans of the individual cells. The board's chairman, Deborah Hersman, is due to provide a fuller update Thursday. The investigation has also renewed scrutiny on the FAA's 2007 decision to let Boeing use a highly flammable battery technology on the 787. A U.S. Senate committee will hold a hearing in coming weeks to examine aviation safety oversight and the FAA's decision, a congressional aide said on Tuesday. No timetable While the NTSB and JTSB hunt for a solution to the battery question, there is also an open issue around fuel leaks on the Dreamliner. In early December, U.S. officials warned of a manufacturing fault with fuel lines, and earlier this month a JAL plane in Boston leaked before takeoff. Industrial manufacturer Eaton Corp said Wednesday it was cooperating with investigators looking at the fuel leaks. "Without speaking about either the incident or investigation, I can tell you that we do supply pumps and valves to the program," a spokeswoman said. The 787 program was already years behind schedule before last week's grounding, which means Boeing cannot deliver newly manufactured planes to customers. Boeing's chief 787 engineer, Mike Sinnett, told an aviation conference in Dublin he could not say when that would change. "I can't really say anything about the timeframe of the investigation. The NTSB is really the only authorized authority in the U.S. to talk about this investigation and they made some recent statements, but I can't speculate on timeframe," Sinnett said Wednesday in remarks made by phone from Seattle. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, the country's top transportation official, said Wednesday the goal was to return the 787 to service as soon as possible but that the government would not rush the plane back either. "We are working diligently with Boeing to figure out the problem and find a solution. Our goal is to get this done as quickly as possible, but we must be confident that the problems are solved before we can move forward," LaHood told the Aero Club of Washington, an aviation advocacy group. FAA Administrator Michael Huerta, appearing at the same event, said the review was looking at the 787's certification, manufacturing and assembly processes, and that he could not speculate on an end date. 'Delayed so many times' For at least one Chinese customer, the uncertainty about the Dreamliner's production and delivery schedule has meant delays in launching new routes. "Frankly, it's a little disappointing the aircraft has been delayed so many times," said Chen Feng, chairman of Hainan Airlines Co Ltd parent HNA Group, in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos. "We still think it's a good aircraft, but this has had some effect on our planning." Hainan has 10 of the planes on order. The grounding of the Dreamliner, an advanced carbon-composite plane with a list price of $207 million, has already forced Japan's ANA to cancel 151 domestic and 26 international flights scheduled for Jan. 23-28, affecting more than 21,000 passengers, the airline said on Monday. ANA, which flies the most Dreamliners of any airline, is due to announce further flight cancellation plans on Thursday. The airline also said it may have to scale back its next two-year business plan because the 787 was to have been such a central part of that forecast. Competition from Airbus Boeing has already delivered 50 of the 787s to date. Around half of those have been in operation in Japan, but airlines in India, South America, Poland, Qatar and Ethiopia, as well as United Airlines in the United States, are also flying the plane. Boeing's main competitor, EADS, said on Wednesday it did not expect the problems with the 787 to affect the certification of its own rival plane, the Airbus A350. "We will do what is needed to avoid the same problems," EADS strategy chief Marwan Lahoud told France's Radio Classic. Airbus has said it hopes to achieve the maiden flight of the carbon-composite A350 by the middle of this year. http://www.nbcnews.com/business/faa-no-timetable-returning-boeing-787s-skies-1C8088357 Back to Top

DOT, FAA Chiefs Guarded When Questioned On Lithium-Ion Batteries U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and FAA Administrator Michael Huerta, speaking to reporters yesterday after an Aero Club luncheon in Washington, were guarded on the safety of lithium-ion batteries for aircraft and on a time line of the government's investigation of Boeing 787 incidents. "We have to see where the data takes us," Huerta emphasized. U.S. , Japanese and French authorities are investigating two separate cases in which lithium-ion batteries on board the new aircraft failed. One of the batteries sparked a fire in a parked aircraft at Boston Logan International Airport , while the other forced an All Nippon Airways ( ANA ) crew to declare an emergency landing in Japan, leading to a worldwide grounding of the 50 787s in service. "The technical experts need to do their job and identify causes, and we'll take appropriate action to remediate them," Huerta said. LaHood also said he does not object to a congressional investigation . These comments came hours after Japan 's transport safety agency told reporters that a lithium-ion battery on the ANA 787 did not exceed its maximum voltage, according to an Associated Press report. But the data did show a sudden, unexplained drop in the voltage, the agency said. http://www.aviationweek.com