Boeing 787 Makes Emergency Landing

By PETER SANDERS

Associated Press

A Boeing 787 Dreamliner flies over Farnborough airport before landing ahead of the Farnborough International Airshow on July 18.

A Boeing Co. 787 Dreamliner on Tuesday made an emergency landing in Laredo, Texas, after the crew reported smoke in the cabin during a test flight.

The second plane of Boeing's six-member test fleet was on a planned flight from Yuma, Ariz., and making its approach to the Texas border city when a fire broke out at the rear of the cabin at about 2:50 p.m. local time.

The crew of 42 Boeing flight-test employees onboard used the jet's emergency slides to evacuate, officials said.

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Emergency crews on the ground responded and extinguished the remainder of flames inside the aircraft.

A company spokeswoman said there was one minor injury during the evacuation. Boeing said data from the aircraft was being taken to Seattle—the center of the company's commercial aircraft operations—for analysis. It said in a statement that determining what happened "will take some time to accomplish."

A spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Texas said the agency will also be looking at the incident.

The incident comes as Boeing pursues a tight timetable to complete testing and certification of the 787 after a series of design and production issues left the program running almost three years behind schedule.

According to a person familiar with the matter, as the jet was flying at 1,000 feet during the approach to Laredo, the Dreamliner's crew reported a fire, possibly in the plane's rear electronics bay. Subsequently, the 787's emergency auxiliary power unit, known as a ram air turbine, deployed as a result of at least a partial power failure.

Some of the plane's automated systems, including the auto-throttle and cockpit flight displays and electronics-assisted flight controls, were affected, this person said. The pilots also canceled their instrument flight plan and proceeded to land under visual flight rules. Boeing said the pilot did not lose primary flight displays.

According to the flight-tracking website FlightAware.com, the Dreamliner had departed Yuma, Ariz., at 7:42 a.m. Mountain Standard Time. It was expected to land in Laredo sometime on Tuesday afternoon after a flight of several hours testing the Dreamliner's nitrogen-generation system, a new safety measure designed to reduce the risk of fire in the plane's fuel tanks.

The state-of-the-art 787, which is made largely of carbon-fiber composite material, depends heavily on its vast and complex electrical system.

Unlike most modern commercial airliners, the Dreamliner uses electrical systems to operate many functions on the plane that are typically powered by excess air from the engines, known as a bleed air system.

Boeing executives have touted the levels of electronic and computer redundancies built into the plane's design. It appears that some of the electrical systems may have failed after the fire.

The test Dreamliner jet is painted in the color scheme of Japan's All Nippon Airways Co., the first customer for the new airliner, though the test jet isn't slated for delivery to the airline.

Boeing last year said the first three Dreamliner test aircraft have been too heavily modified for commercial service. The plane is equipped with Rolls-Royce PLC's Trent 1000 engines, which have come under scrutiny in recent months after a series of problems with the engines both on flying test aircraft and at Rolls-Royce's ground testing facility in Derby, England.

Tuesday's emergency was unrelated to its engines, a person familiar with the incident said.

On Monday, Rolls-Royce, which is at the center of last week's mishap involving one of its engines on a Qantas Airways Ltd. Airbus A380 superjumbo jet, issued a statement saying the Airbus incident was unrelated to problems with the Dreamliner's engine. The next day, a Qantas Boeing 747 reported a different problem with its Rolls-Royce engine.

Tuesday's incident in Texas is the latest setback for Boeing's new flagship commercial aircraft program, which is running nearly three years behind schedule. The first Dreamliner is slated for delivery to ANA sometime in the first quarter of next year.

It's unclear if Tuesday's incident will further affect that timetable.

Write to Peter Sanders at peter.sanders@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications
A previous version of this article incorrectly said Tuesday's emergency was related to its engines.