Fire breaks out on plane grounded at Logan

BOSTON (FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) - A fire broke out in a cabin of an empty Japan Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner after it landed in Boston following a non-stop flight from Tokyo on Monday morning.

Fire crews responded to Gate E8 around 10:40 a.m. for an electrical fire. The plane was parked when the fire was discovered.

According to Massachusetts Port Authority's Fire Chief Bob Donahue, the fire began in an auxiliary battery pack that supplies the plane with power when the engines are shut down.

Using infrared equipment, fire crews found the flames in a small compartment in the plane's belly and quickly extinguished the fire.

"Something caused this battery pack to overheat, ignite," Donahue said, adding it's too soon to know the cause.

The flight had landed normally at about 10:15 a.m., and its 173 passengers and 11 crew members had already gotten off the jet. A mechanic was doing a walk-through of the plane when the mechanic noticed a light smoke increasing from the underbelly of the plane and called for help.

"When we arrived, it was a heavy smoke, and that was in three minutes, so this was advancing," Donahue said.

The 787 is Boeing's newest plane, and the first one was delivered in late 2011. In November 2010, a test flight had to make an emergency landing after an in-flight electrical fire. The fire delayed flight tests for several weeks while Boeing investigated.

Last month, a United Airlines 787 flying from Houston to Newark, N.J., diverted to New Orleans because of a mechanical issue. No one was injured.

Ed Freni, Massport's aviation director, said JAL officials reported that the plane that caught fire was delivered to the airline in late December.

Eric Weiss, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, said the agency is sending an investigator to Boston on Monday to look at the airplane. The Federal Aviation Administration also said it was investigating.

Boeing Co. spokeswoman Lori Gunter said the company was aware of the fire and was working with JAL. She said she couldn't immediately answer other questions because Boeing's technical team was focused on the investigation.

JAL began nonstop service between Boston and Tokyo's Narita Airport using the new Boeing 787 in April. A return flight to Tokyo was cancelled Monday and JAL is working to reschedule passengers, a JAL spokeswoman said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Cox Media Group