Mobile Phone Causes Fire

[Ken Borough]

This is a very concerning development. Will it be a matter of time before all lithium batteries are banned from aircraft?

Investigation: AO-2016-066 - In-flight fire involving Boeing 747, VH-OJS, near Los Angeles International Airport, United States, on 21 June 2016 (http://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2016/aair/ao-2016-066/)

[Jason_M]

Yeah they are bloody dangerous.... I almost lost due to fire my Triumph Speed Triple from a lithium battery that had a charging fault....

Not sure it is practical to band all mobile phones, ipad's, laptops however.... There are new battery technologies in late development so hopefully this will be an issue of the past soon.

[framer]

This is not the first time this has happened. And it won't be the last. How many phones? How many seats that move? I'm not saying it will cause a catastrophe, I think that the fact the phones are in the cabin makes them less of a risk than the batteries that are in the hold as the fire is quickly identified. But it is a risk that needs to be managed.

[Capt Fathom]

Looks like the risk was managed!

[cattletruck]

Lack of quality in manufacture of these batteries is also proving to be a big issue. Hiding behind that colourful polymer skin can be the worst assembly standards known ready to burst into flames.

[Capn Bloggs]

Hang on. Millions, if not billions of these things are/have flown over the last few years with no issue. Now one gets jammed in a seat, crushed and catches fire, which is put out. Ban them?? Kneejerk of the highest order.

[De_flieger]

Banning them would be completely impractical. They're something that virtually every traveller carries, some with more than one, that they are counting on using through the flight and then at their destination, and thats before you start looking at crew carrying company documents or electronic flight bags on iPads or similar. Most business travellers or holidaymakers would be more likely to voluntarily leave behind a kidney than a mobile phone these days, and if you told the flight attendants they couldn't bring their mobiles then we'd be stuck at whatever outport we are at as they quit en masse on the spot!

[skkm]

Cathay has a part in their safety video where they tell pax "if anything becomes stuck in the seat, do not move it and ask the crew to help." Perhaps this should be more widespread?

(assuming, of course, that said pax pay attention to the video...)

[VH-FTS]

Cathay has a part in their safety video where they tell pax "if anything becomes stuck in the seat, do not move it and ask the crew to help." Perhaps this should be more widespread?

(assuming, of course, that said pax pay attention to the video...)

Qantas say the same in their video.

But in fairness to the pax, 99% of people wouldn't understand why their seat shouldn't be moved because the message is so subtle.

[framer]

Ban them?? Kneejerk of the highest order.
Point of order Capn....not one person has suggested that banning them is a good idea.

[SandyPalms]

The safety demo tells Passengers not to move their seats if they drop their device. Scuttlebutt suggests the gentleman in question was also told by the FA not to move it after he initially did the right thing and called a FA. She went to get something (torch?) and passenger witnesses say that while she was gone, he moved the seat, resulting in the small fire.

He was told, and did it anyway.

[Capn Bloggs]

Point of order Capn....not one person has suggested that banning them is a good idea.

Fair enough framer, but Ken went close...

Will it be a matter of time before all lithium batteries are banned from aircraft?

:)

[Ken Borough]

Bloggs,

I was simply putting the question that sooner or later would be asked. We all know that as soon as something unexpected happens, rightly or wrongly, the questions will flow. I am sure the 'issue' wil be appropriately and properly managed as, as someone else has suggested, squillions of lithium batteries are carried in the cabin of aircraft without a problem. :ok:

[framer]

Safety departments are well aware of this. It has happened before and will happen again. There hasn't been a move to ban them because the fires/smoke/ explosions happen in the cabin and are quickly identified and dealt with. ( also it would be too big a headache)

[PDR1]

Hysterical twaddle. The fire risk here was not caused by a lithium battery - it was caused by a battery. If you crush and short out a NiMH battery in that way it will have exactly the same result. You would get the same result with any battery of similar size and C-rating.

Batteries contain stored energy. Shorting them out will release that energy at a rate determined mainly by the internal impedance (C-rating) of the battery. This can lead to fires.

In fact, the thing worth noting here is the exact opposite - that this lithium battery was remarkably safe. According to the hysterical blather so common on here any lithium battery fire, once started, is completely inextinguishable and will burn everything in sight until it has melted the planet into a single lump of molten lava. But here we have a lithium battery fire which was quickly, easily and safely extinguished by the cabin crew.

So it would appear that the battery designs are now safer, and the use of lithium batteries will NOT result in the extinction of all life on the planet within the next ten days. Who'd have thunk it...

PDR

[LeadSled]

Ban them?? Kneejerk of the highest order.

Goodness me, I agree with Bloggs, what is the world coming to???!!!
Tootle pip!!

[chuboy]

Why not ban cramming seats together so tightly that this failure mode becomes a possibility?

I wonder...

[standard unit]

Why not ban cramming seats together so tightly that this failure mode becomes a possibility?


It occurred in J/C on a reconfigured 744 so no seat cramming involved.