Agree with most of the posters here, this madness has got to stop, first UPS6 and now Asiana.
How many more disasters before authorities ban these batteries, in commercial quantities, from being air freighted?
My outfit regularly carries them out of IAH, so I have a vested interest.

JO.

Freezer bins?
 

Store them with the seafood?

Several posters have commented that it's the alcohol together with ambient oxygen that support the fire.

It would seem to be a step in the right direction if the batteries were shipped in a container devoid of oxygen. An inert gas, in a container w/ expansion chamber perhaps, would deprive the fire of an oxidant.

RIP an experienced crew, undoubtedly prepared for anything but this.

As a chemist, I've seen lithium Grignard reagants just "go" in inert conditions. No free oxygen, but within a carbonyl or alcohol environment.

The only way you can put these kind of fires out is either to use a specialist copper/nitrogen extinguisher, or to use sand to take the energy away.

The only other way to do it would be to pack the batteries with a chemical pack above them to stop the chain reaction, maybe an alkyl amino compound. But can you honestly see shippers paying for the extra weight?

A ship has a pressurized fire main, usually a decent firefighting crew, and the ability to flood the burning compartment, if all else fails, without throwing away every ounce of its stability.

With the type of hazards we're discussing here, the slow boat is the safest way to go.

Have you seen a container ship lately? MUCH of the cargo is carried well above the main deck, and there is little (if any) access to much of it. Also, I doubt individual containers have fire detection or suppression, so a fire would be detected only after a container was fully involved.

Fire mains and crew are fine in the engine room, but would be ineffective in the stack of containers above the main deck. They would also likely be of marginal effectiveness below the main deck.

I think it is significant that there are VERY few instances of electronics simply catching fire, even if you include the rash of bad laptop batteries a few years ago. I really believe there is something in the [lack of] packing and/or the quality of the batteries involved...

Okay, fair enough - but ponder this: assume, for the moment, that a fair number of overwater cargo shipments contain lithium batteries. Plenty of fancy electronic bits are packed into conex boxes and brought into ports every day.

Now ask yourself when you last heard of a major shipboard fire that was caused (or at least suspected of having been caused) by the cook-off of lithium batteries.

Then ask yourself why there might be a disparity between the two methods of shipment.

Early detection
 

Apart from banning lithium batteries in these amounts, from cargo aircraft, the only way to really do something effective is EARLY DETECTION.

We need a video surveillance system for critical places. This system MUST include thermal imaging cameras. There are several options -

One can be to take a snapshot when doors are closed, then compare it to just before take-off. If, despite packs running, there is a substantial increase in temperature anywhere in the area where the cameras are pointing, it can be investigated, before taking off.

Also, a gradual rise in temperature even in tenths of a degree can easily be spotted with thermal cameras - automatically. The technology is here, but these cameras are not cheap. But what is the price of each freighter crash - apart from loss of lives and the grief involved? Albeit expensive, the weight of the system would not be that much - compared to the protection offered.


It seems in the lithium case, the batteries are somehow triggered on ground - too high temperature when handling them? In Dubai, they were not even declared as dangerous goods, as far as I know. Leaving them in the Dubai blistering heat might have been enough to start a chain reaction. Might the same have happened in Incheon?

Even though early detection might not have helped over the middle of the Pacific, it would still be better to know that something is going on - which should NOT be going on.

How else would we know if a pallet is a ticking fire bomb, preparing for an inferno within minutes or hours?

Some fires makes lots of smoke, right from the start, others take a while before the smoke starts. And the smoke needs to get to the smoke detectors.

Thermal imaging with automatic temperature change monitoring would enable us to spot these issues, way before they get to this point. And hopefully even before we get airborne ...

Thinking of the crews of the Asiana and the UPS - let them not have perished in vain. And let there not be other crews to follow. Please.

passengers ...
 

now lets get this straight .. the question we all have to start asking is how would we feel as 400kg of these things is loaded onto OUR aircraft, as yet the evidence that these were the ignition source is speculative, but an awful lot of people, myself included are drawing conclusions.

IF there is no means by which to inert these items for transit, then they have no place on a civil air cargo manifest. IF special conditions are required to ship them by sea, so be it, there would have to be a cultural shift by the manufacturers, and freight agencies alike, but consolidation would take place of consignments, and if they are required to be shipped as deck cargo only, once again, so be it, the industry has to adapt to new challenges.

I accept the fact that the worst scenario on a vessel is a fire, at least the option exists to get the offending container over the side, and the crew at least have the option of taking to the lifeboats, to date I am unaware of a Martin Baker seat option for the B747F.

Our objective ( as the flying community) has to be to prevent these accidents occurring, there is no caveat "if financially expedient". there cannot be. Until there is a method of preventing these fuses randomly igniting, bringing down aircraft, killing crew and putting those on the ground in peril ... they have no place on the manifest.

To accept them makes the crew passengers, we can no longer assess or control the risk to our aircraft or guarantee our personal safety.

Safety Regulatory enforcement are always mouthing safety niceties in public but do their utmost to help freight companies avoid costly measures. I believe they will just increase the hours flight crew spend on Dangerous Goods ground training; before long all the hoo ha about this trgedy will be forgotten.

This another very sad event afetr the harrowing story of the UPS freighter in Dubai.

Are Li batteries alowed as hold cargo on PAx flights , I am lead to believe that a large proportion of airfreight travels in the underfloor holds of widebodies rather than specialsied freighters and flying across an ocean or remote wasteland ontop of a few tons of these is really scary thought . If they are permitted it would seem literally a catastrophe waiting in the wings, although wasn't SAA 747 brought down years ago in the Indian Ocean by a cargo hold fire with large loss of life?

And please don't get me wrong I am not for a second suggesting it only matters that these potentially dnagerous devices are kept off Pax flights, I think it is a tragedy that two crews have already lost their lives and do not think any more aircrew should be put at risk for comemrcial expediency

PB

It's interesting to read arguments about ditching in the ocean (at night).


BUT, if you watch the FAA video about laptop fires and you understand the fireextinguishing process in a cargohold then you will quickly realise the efforts are futile.
It is evident from the video that the batteries need sustained cooling to avoid another fire due to thermal runaway.
Th extinguisher will put the fire out, but doesn't cool the pack. The same goes for depressurising the hull, if you are high enough it might put out the intial fire, but doesn't cool the batteriepacks, resulting in a secundary fire, as these fires appear to be fully dependent on thermal runaway it is the fairly safe to assume the batteriepacks of the same type in the direct vicinity of the fire will also ignite, thus resulting in a chain reaction and a subsequent uncontrollable fire.

It leaves only two possible options open to avoid repeats in the future,
1. ban said cargo from aircraft and in addition restrict appliances on
passenger aircraft(the latter is virtually impossible, think laptop, phones
2. In order to give aircrew a way out, either retrofit with ejectorseats or
provide a means that aircrew can bail out if it comes to the worst.
For example the escapeshute as fitted to concorde protypes.

Or carry DG only in truly fireproof containers that keep any fire inside without hurting the a/c. Thinking of the space shuttle's lightweight foam tiles as insulation here. Add some monitoring system and powerful extinguisher system with every container and you could feel at least a little safer than today.

Check tile demo pic:

ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

Question: are Lithium batteries CAO or do they get loaded on pax a/c as well?
If they are CAO, why can they get loaded on cargo a/c taking into account that in case of a fire the crew can't do anything about it?

It was a 747SP Combi. There was a long government cover up with the usual conspiracy theories, eventually when apartheid ended the Truth and Reconcilliation Commission confirmed that the aircraft was carrying a secret shipment of solid fuel rocket propellant for a missile project. Interestingly this could not have been the original cause of the fire because it would have destroyed the aircraft in seconds rather than the time that they flew an attempted diversion. It is likely that a minor fire spread slowly until it reached the dangerous cargo.

Google for "Helderberg disaster" if you have a few hours to spare wading through the crackpot theories.

Some explanation regarding the carriage of lithium batteries on aircraft.

http://www.bureaudg.com/brochures/50rev03EN-Lithium.pdf

I like what nitpicker330 suggests.

Equally, from what others have suggested there is very little chance of sending Li batteries to their destination via the sea lanes, and no other. At least not yet. Commercial pressures abound. They are a greater force at work, but it seems an immediate solution could be to depower the batteries before shipment which removes their flammability. Added to that, shipment in a fire-proof container as an interim measure. I'd reckon Asiana will be doing something like that given they lost a bird. Others might take longer to come around, but it won't be long.

How long does it take to mandate this stuff once it's all figured out as necessary, desirable and, perhaps more importantly, cost effective? Waaaay above my pay grade, so back to mitigating the effects of a fire, should it break out, as interim measures.

On the subject of ditching: tough decision. Sully's case was not repeatable in this instance. At night, over land, on fire, no Hudson in sight...Sully's engines not working made flight an impossibility, unless they lit up again, to which Skiles worked tirelessly. Meanwhile, continued flight was a reality forced upon them. If we're questioning ditching, well, if it's a question that's only because the situation's not yet terminal.

Does being on fire mean you ditch? Only when you know you know further flight isn't an option. And there's the thing: you get a fire warning at altitude over water. You spend at least, AT LEAST, 10 seconds perceiving, analysing and acting in a co-ordinated manner. Now we're talking AT LEAST here, as any fiar dinkum pilot knows. To say otherwise is just not true. Do you spend eight to 15 hours of every flight on the edge of your seat waiting for the air molecules to just stop holding the airplane up?

No way, not unless you're Japanese. You don't sit there strategizing every minute of every flight, so a fire warning, any warning, will come as a surprise and you'll need time to analyse "wtf is this" before you act. That all takes time, so I reckon 10 seconds is a bare minimum for the circle to start with perception and end in action.

After that you divert immediately. But unless you're constantly strategizing and analysing your in-flight options, nearest airport, weather en-route, traffic to the left or right, who has the radio and why the **** Bloggs chose this moment in time to take a piss, then you're going to have to spend another minute, at least, be real, don't bull**** yourself, figuring out what dynamics have changed, where the traffic is, below, above, left or right; where is the nearest airport, no longer the nearest suitable; can we make it; should we put her down (land or sea), and then, "****, you mean we have to ditch?"

I have never ditched, but I've thought about it long and hard, as genuine posters here are doing. I would want to honor the Asiana guys by suggesting they were not panicking; that they were doing their level best to keep it all under control while they got their checklists done in a rapid but orderly fashion before deciding on what options were available. Sadly, it didn't work out. Nor will it work out in future if the same happens in another cargo airplane (no, Li batteries are not permitted in the lower cargo hold of passenger airplanes, or any hold of a pax plane for that matter, so don't worry 'bout that, poster).


Good luck if it's you.

"no, Li batteries are not permitted in the lower cargo hold of passenger airplanes, or any hold of a pax plane for that matter, so don't worry 'bout that, poster)."

You sure?? !!!

There are 3 types of Lithium Ion batteries for cairrage :
ICAO codes ELI and ELM are exempted items able to be carried on pax a/c
the other ain't and is a CAO item (cannot remember the code-hey it's Friday and the Shiraz was great !)
Regardless, when casting a cursory eye over the NOTOC I consider all an ignition source. I take rare comfort to those placed in the lower hold (extinguishant avail) , the main deck ALWAYS gets inspected before doors close.
Route 2 is always programmed and I will divert at a wiff, that said the majority of my time is spent Asia ANC bound so ditching in the winter with 30 ft seas often at night is an option but hardly pallatable. End of the day never surrender and if that means sending both FO's aft to fight the fire then that is all that we have left. Have never seen Shemya even on a clear day but by Christ I am going to do my damdest to put her down.... or ?
RPwr

Rice Power, I'm afraid that you're not correct on a number of points. The codes "ELI" and "ELM" are not ICAO codes, they are IATA Cargo Interline Message Procedures (IMP) codes. ELI = excepted lithium ion batteries and ELM = excepted lithium metal batteries. There are also two other cargo IMP codes for lithium batteries, RLI = fully regulated, i.e. Class 9 lithium ion batteries and RLM = fully regulated lithium metal batteries.

Both types, excepted and fully regulated may be carried on both passenger and cargo aircraft, except that all lithium batteries are prohibited to, from and within the US when shipped as just batteries.

For some up to date information please read
Lithium Batteries - Guidance and Packing Instructions