FAA chief Michael Huerta is poised lift the Dreamliner grounding.Barring some last minute delay, these people said, the FAA will announce Boeing has demonstrated that the 787's redesigned batteries are safe, convincing regulators in the process that various internal enhancements and a new protective metal container will prevent fires and automatically suck smoke or toxic fumes out of the cutting-edge plane
Facing escalating pressure from all sides after extensive government analyses and internal debate, FAA chief Michael Huerta and his boss, Transportation Secretary [Dear Guest/Member you can't see link before click here to register] are poised to give the green light for Boeing to help airlines retrofit more than four dozen 787s. The jetliner stopped flying world-wide in mid-January after lithium-ion batteries burned on a pair of Dreamliners in little more than a week.
Foreign regulators generally are Expected to follow the FAA's lead. That means many of the fuel-efficient 787s—which rely more heavily on composite parts and advanced electrical systems that any previous jetliner—could resume carrying passengers as early as May. The fixes are Expected to take less than a handful of days, but other aircraft testing and refresher training for pilots could stretch into additional weeks.
Spokeswomen for the FAA and the Department of Transportation declined to comment. Without commenting on the timing of a decision, a Boeing spokesman reiterated that the company stands "ready to reply to additional requests and continue in dialogue with the FAA to ensure we have met all of their expectations."
The Expected move caps a particularly difficult and financially painful period for the Chicago plane maker, which struggled with the first mandatory grounding of a major U.S. airliner since 1979.
FAA experts initially believed some easy inspections and operational safeguards could get Boeing's flagship jetliner back in the air within a matter of days. But fixes for the underlying safety problems proved much more complex, and the extended grounding has cost Boeing hundreds of millions of dollars, tarnished its reputation and infuriated airline customers after they stuck with the company through years of unrelated production delays.
When the plane maker submitted its full data package to the FAA earlier this month, according to people familiar with the details, the company asked for a final decision by about April 16 on the grounds that was enough time for regulators to validate its conclusions.
That informal target date passed with no public signal from Mr. Huerta about his precise timetable. But even then, there seemed little doubt the FAA would act. The agency already gave its blessing to Boeing efforts to assemble battery-modification kits and prepare them for shipment to various designated repair facilities around the globe. Teams of Boeing technical experts are poised to flock to those sites to help airlines do the work.
Boeing said on Thursday that FAA officials also have given the company unfettered approval to resume routine Dreamliner production flights that would help determine if various systems are working properly on newly assembled aircraft.
The only suspense, according to people familiar with the deliberations, was whether the FAA would choose to give the green light before or after the National Transportation Safety Board holds public hearings next week that are intended to dissect and criticize the agency's original 2007 approval of the 787's battery system.
As a result, some officials at the FAA and the Department of Transportation were leery of announcing anything until after next Wednesday, when the safety board is slated to wrap up its two days of hearings.
In the end, however, the FAA is Expected to do exactly what it promised Boeing and the flying public. Federal safety experts seemingly stuck with their own, independent timetable.
But Boeing confronts new challenges, including how to help airlines promote the 787 again while persuading skeptical passengers that the planes meet the highest safety standards as promised.
On Tuesday, Mr. Huerta told the Senate Commerce Committee that Boeing performed 20 specific tests and then "provided a very extensive set of documents to the FAA."
With so much at stake, though, in recent days government and industry officials have been divided about how quickly Mr. Huerta would act.
After the anticipated announcement, Boeing will issue a service bulletin instructing airlines how to revamp the battery systems, and the FAA will issue a formal safety directive mandating the changes.
The agency, according to government and industry officials, also is Expected to maintain approval for 787s to fly routes over water or polar regions that take the planes up to three hours from a suitable emergency landing strip.
For Mr. Huerta, who joined the FAA as deputy administrator in 2010, became acting administrator two years later and began serving a five-year term as the agency's top appointee in January, deciding the fate of the 787 has ended up as one of the highest-profile aviation regulatory decisions in decades.
The former managing director of the 2002 winter Olympics, who worked there with later Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney, Mr. Huerta is known as a seasoned manager and conciliator rather than for having an extensive technical background. After the first 787 battery incident occurred in January, Mr. Huerta expressed confidence in the plane's safety but nonetheless launched a sweeping review of how the agency originally certified the aircraft.
Now, he is confronting critics inside and outside the safety board who contend FAA leaders before him made serious mistakes and failed to exercise aggressive oversight of Boeing when they approved the batteries in the first place. Those questions are likely to dominate next week's safety board hearings.
In his Senate testimony on Tuesday, Mr. Huerta buttressed the point that when it comes to the 787, he doesn't always get to make the ultimate decision by himself. When asked about his role, Mr. Huerta told the panel that "I would be the one making the recommendation" to Mr. LaHood.
At another point in the hearing, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the West Virginia Democrat who chairs the panel, joked with Mr. Huerta about the pressures. "It's a wonderful job" to run the FAA, Mr. Rockefeller said with a smile. "No stress whatsoever."
During his tenure, Mr. Huerta has confronted other controversies. He has been the White House's point man in trying to persuade reluctant airlines to invest in next-generation air traffic control technology. Last year, the FAA bowed to industry pressure by excluding cargo carriers from tough new pilot-fatigue rules. And in coming months, Mr. Huerta is Expected to announce wide-ranging rewrites of rules governing airline pilot training and experience.