A fresh problem with the battery system on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner emerged overnight.
Japan Airlines (Jal) maintenance staff reported seeing smoke coming from one of its aircraft while parked at Narita airport in Tokyo on Tuesday.
An inspection subsequently found the main battery to be damaged, and US regulators said an investigation had been launched in conjunction with Japanese authorities.
Jal and Boeing both said it was possible that the smoke had come from the Dreamliner’s battery, although neither company could confirm this, the Financial Times reported.
The US Federal Aviation Administration, which last year led the global grounding of the Dreamliner, said it was working with Boeing and Japan’s civil aviation authority “to investigate a battery malfunction” on the Jal aircraft.
A Jal spokesman said maintenance staff on Tuesday afternoon local time had spotted “white smoke” emanating from a Dreamliner due to fly from Narita to Bangkok that evening.
The staff, who were inside the Dreamliner’s cockpit at the time, saw the smoke through a window and went outside to investigate.
They could not see any smoke by the time they exited the aircraft, but on returning to the cockpit there was a warning light suggesting a problem with the main battery.
A subsequent inspection of the battery in the aircraft’s forward electrical equipment bay, located behind the cockpit, found the system to be damaged.
The Jal spokesman said the carrier continued to operate its other Dreamliners. It has 13 in its fleet, and a further 32 on order.
The US National Transportation Safety Board, which is still investigating a fire focused on the battery of a Jal Dreamliner last January at Boston’s Logan airport, said it was ready to assist any investigation by the Japanese authorities into the latest incident.
The NTSB has yet to determine the root cause of the battery fire at Logan airport, the FT reported.