Important passenger information The runways are now fully re-opened, following an earlier internal fire on-board an aircraft. All arrivals and departures were earlier temporarily suspended while airport fire crews attended to the incident. Flights are now operating, but will be subject to delay. Please check the status of your flight with your airline before travelling to Heathrow. The Metropolitan Police Service have advised that there were no passengers on board and no reported injuries. You can keep up-to-date by following Heathrow on Twitter and Facebook or receive individual flight status updates on the move by using our mobile app or our SMS text service. http://www.heathrowairport.com/
Here's another 787 in the news today: http://milepoint.com/forums/threads/thomson-126-787-returns-to-manchester.66551/#post-2007674
I prefer planes with meaningful operating history. I waited over a year before going on the A380 (taking QF's 747 service from LAX four times in lieu of the A380). I finally took the 380...then a few weeks later, kaboom, they had their problem on the flight from SIN. Lesson learnt: Wait two years, not one.
This is an interesting (and important) spot to have a fire. Purportedly batteries aren't back here at least. I saw one report that mentioned this is where the crew rest area is, but that Ethiopian didn't add the crew rest bunks on their 787s. This morning NY time, the carrier now saying the "fire was not related to flight safety" - I struggle to see how any fire would not be related to flight safety! I have a feeling (and hope) that this was a human-caused event, not just a plane sitting idle and spontaneously catching fire! Either way, due to the proximity of the tail, this repair will not be trivial.
On prune.org, there is preliminary speculation that the aircraft is a write off by a few tech with knowledge of composite materials.
Are the beacons electrically independent of the rest of the 787 - only running from their own battery - or are they supplied from the 787 electrical system and the battery is there as a backup when other power isn't available?
