Observed cabin fire on descent.
A friend recently flew from SFO to Denver, and whilst on the descent heard a loud bang from the seat row in front of him, followed by smoke and flames. The cabin crew doused the fire with jugs of water from the galley, and my friend considers the cause of the fire may have been a Lithium battery, but he has no confirmation of this, and he also queries why no fire extinguisher was used ?
Q.1 If the TSA allow a device to be carried on board that can accidentally cause a fire, what is to stop them allowing someone to deliberately use this technique ? Seems that toothpaste and nail clippers are forbidden, but potential incendiary devices are acceptable. I bet the pax. involved had to take his shoes off to board.
Q.2. My memory of emergency equipment carried in the cabin is now well past its Use By date, but I'm of the opinion that the cabin crew had access to fire extinguishers carried near to the galleys, albeit maybe maybe not obvious to the pax., in which case the lack of use in this incident is indeed puzzling.
I don't know the airline involved, nor the exact date, but it was in the past 10 days.
Google hasn't helped.