One of the 787 Dreamliners conducted its first flight with top executives if Boeing Co. and the All Nippon Airways on board. The flight landed at Haneda airport in Tokyo on April 28, 2013. The test flight was conducted three months after the worldwide fleet of 787s was grounded and was conducted by ANA who is a major purchaser of the Dreamliners.
The test was conducted after the Ethiopian Airlines became the first carrier to resume flights of the aircraft that were grounded in the month of January, due to battery combustion problems. The chairman of ANA (Shinichiro Ito) and Ray Conner, the chief of Boeing, landed in Tokyo at 11 am after a two hour flight hoping that they would be able to reassure their passengers of the safety of the aircrafts.
The world’s largest fleet of the Dreamliners is with ANA and the presence of both the executives had indicated that they wanted to leave behind the damaging crisis. The Dreamliners were grounded by the US Federal Aviation Administration after certain problems with the lithium ion batteries had caused fire onboard.
The investigations into the problem continued for five months, after which the FAA finally approved the first battery fix by the company.
