This seems to pose a fairly serious risk to aircraft. OK - there are fire suppresion systems (on some aircraft I think) - but scary anyway. Anyone experienced this ? More to the point - is this news to people ? Suddenly the thought of pax putting 'phones in the hold isn't so attractive !
From here :
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19849
A US WATCHDOG is concerned about the increasing number of exploding mobile phones that have been injuring Americans over the last two years.
According to figures released by the Consumer Product Safety Commission more than 83 mobiles have either exploded or caught fire causing injury in the last two years. That would nearly be three and a half going up in smoke a month.
Some of the injuries have been fairly nasty. Burns to the face, neck, hip and legs have all been reported.
The main problem is dodgy batteries and there have been three voluntary battery recalls.
However the phone manufacturers say that most of the exploding batteries are those which have been made by counterfeiters. Although if they didn't make replacement batteries so expensive then the counterfeiters would not be able to peddle their dodgy wares.
But some groups, like the Wireless Consumers Alliance, think it is because the phone designers are stacking too much power into a small space. This creates more heat that can't be vented, sometimes as high as 600 degrees and this creates an explosive effect.
To be fair there are more than 170 million people use mobiles in the US so per capita the number of exploding phones is small.