Both the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and EASA have issued an airworthiness directive (AD) for the inspection of specific Emergency Locator Transmitters (ELTs) on Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft following a recent fire occurrence.
On July 12, 2013, a fire occurred on a parked, unoccupied and electrically un-powered Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner at London-Heathrow Airport. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) reported on July 18 that it was examining the Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) as a possible source of the fire and issued two safety recommendations.
On July 26, both FAA and EASA issued airworthiness directives requiring either removal or inspection of the Honeywell fixed emergency locator transmitter (ELT), and corrective action if necessary.
Deactivation of the ELT is allowed if the repair is made within 90 days, according to the FAA approved Boeing 787 Master Minimum Equipment List (MMEL). The EASA approved MMEL stipultates that repairs have to be carried out within 6 flights or 25 flight hours. EASA decided to revise this rectification interval to 90 days in line with the FAA.
More information:
- FAA AD 2013-0628 (PDF)
- EASA AD 2013-0168
- AAIB Special Bulletin S5/2013 which includes the AAIB safety recommendations (PDF)
- ASN Occurrence Description ET-AOP