Boeing’s Bad-News-Bears Brigade Grows Larger

Japan’s two largest airlines, All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines, grounded their fleets of Boeing (NYSE:BA) 787 Dreamliners on Wednesday after a battery issue on a domestic flight forced an emergency landing.

Is this the nail in the coffin?

The short answer is: no, but it’s obviously not good. Reuters reports that a Japanese transport ministry official described the incident as “highly serious,” language that is reportedly used in international safety circles to mean that there could have been an accident.

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Reports indicate that the failure occurred in the same lithium-ion type battery that failed and caused a fire in a different Dreamliner at a U.S. airport last week. That fire, combined with a string of other electrical mishaps and fuel leaks, prompted the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to open a formal review of the aircraft…