A Boeing 787 Dreamliner caught fire at London’s Heathrow Airport on Friday afteroon.
No passengers were aboard the aircraft at the time of the fire.
The aircraft owned by Ethiopian Airlines caused inbound and outbound air traffic to be delayed at the busy air terminal while fire crews assessed the situation.
The plane appears to be largely undamaged on the outside, and, after a short period of time, the situation was listed as contained.
Boeing officials have staked the company’s future on the success of the 787 Dreamliner, and today’s fire caused the company’s stock value to plummet by 6.5 percent.
From January through April 2013, all Boeing 787 Dreamliners were grounded while the company redesigned the aircraft’s lithium-ion battery units.
At this time, it is unknown if the 787’s battery was to blame for the Ethiopian Airlines 787 fire.
The airline owns three other Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
Boeing was only allowed to bring the 787 back into circulation after regulators lifted grounding orders against the jet. Before the ground order was lifted, Boeing retrofitted 50 to 60 jets with more insulation between the battery cells and a new system for venting smoke or hazardous gases out of the planes.
Boeing recently revealed that, along with better insulation and batteries, the company also made changes to electrical panels.
The following statement was released by Heathrow airport following the fire:
“We can confirm there has been an onboard internal fire involving an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft and the airport’s emergency services are in attendance. The aircraft was parked on a remote parking stand. There were no passengers on board and there are no reported injuries at this time. Arrivals and departures are temporarily suspended while airport fire crews attend to this incident. This is a standard procedure if fire crews are occupied with an incident.”
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