Japan emergency hits Dreamliners

Japan's two biggest airlines have grounded their fleets of Boeing Dreamliners after an apparent battery problem forced one of All Nippon Airways (ANA)' jets to make an emergency landing on Wednesday.

The plane landed safely in Takamatsu, and all 137 passengers and crew were evacuated using the emergency slides, accordnig to the airline. Several people were slightly injured during the evacuations.

"During the flight, [the pilots] had an error message saying 'battery problem,'" said an ANA spokesman. "We are still investigating what exactly happened."

Local media said the pilots noticed smoke in the cockpit, but ANA would not comment on those reports. A passenger told Japan's NHK broadcaster that he "smelled something strange" as the plane was taking off.

But ANA and its rival Japan Airlines, both of them among Boeing's biggest customers for the jet, said they would ground their fleets pending safety checks. ANA has 17 Dreamliners in service, and Japan Airlines has seven.

Al Jazeera's Andrew Thomas, reporting from Sydney, said: "These are supposed to be state of the art batteries. Much lighter than their predecessors.

"They charge inflight and normally get used on the ground. But if they overcharge they can overheat and that can cause smoke potentially - fire as well.

"It's a relatively straightforward process for Boeing to replace these state of the art batteries with more conventional ones.

"But of course, this isn't the only issue the Dreamliner has," said Thomas

The groundings cap off a slew of recent problems with Boeing's new aircraft.

The sophisticated new plane, the world's first mainly carbon-composite airliner, suffered two fuel leaks, a battery fire, a wiring problem, brake computer glitch and cracked cockpit window last week.

Wednesday's flight bound for Haneda Airport near Tokyo left Yamaguchi airport in western Japan shortly after 8am local time [2300 GMT] but made an emergency landing less than an hour later.

Marc Birtel, a Boeing spokesman, told Reuters: "We've seen the reports, we're aware of the events and are working with our customer."

Japan is the biggest market so far for the Dreamliner, with Japan Airlines and local rival All Nippon Airways flying 24 of the 50 Dreamliners delivered to date.

Japan's transport minister acknowledged that passenger confidence in Boeing's new jet is at stake, as both Japan and the United States have opened broad and open-ended investigations into the plane.

Japanese authorities said on Monday they would investigate fuel leaks on a 787 operated by Japan Airlines, and the US National Transportation Safety Board said later its agents would analyse the lithium-ion battery and burned wire bundles from a fire aboard another 787 at Boston's Logan airport last week.

Qantas Airways said on Wednesday that its orders for 15 Dreamliner jets was still on track, despite the problems. India's aviation regulator said it was reviewing the aircraft, but had no plans to ground the fleet.