Hold those phones in your carry on. Battery sets 777 on fire
A lithium battery packed inside checked luggage is reported to have caused a cargo hold fire in an Emirates 777-300 over western China yesterday, forcing an emergency landing without injury in Urumqi.
There were 270 people on board the flight between Dubai and Beijing when the fire was detected according to a detailed report in The Aviation Herald.
The risks of lithium battery fires in aircraft have caused immense concern in safety organisations in recent years, and have been implicated in a number of cargo flight crashes this century.
There have also been incidents in which lithium batteries in mobile phones have burst into flames even while switched off on the ground, including in airport terminals, and inside aircraft in flight as a passenger carry on item.
The concerns about the batteries have also spread to tablets and PCs, where a small number of incidents have also been reported in general use.
The advice across safety authorities is unanimous. Passengers should carry their lithium battery powered devices with them into aircraft cabins so that they are readily accessible if they do ignite, as airlines train their cabin staff in extinguishing the intense fires that can follow a battery meltdown, and this capability has been proven in a number of incidents in recent years.
There is a detailed lay friendly article about lithium battery fires and how they can be prevented or extinguished on the ATSB web site, with further links to a CASA paper on their safe carriage. If your train commute involves long tunnels or you are about to take Eurostar between Paris and London, for the express, literally express, purpose of avoiding 90 minute passport inspection queues at the abysmally incompetently run London Heathrow airport, this is also recommended as a seriously useful read before boarding.
The case for screening checked luggage for lithium batteries, and confiscating the luggage and imposing seriously high fines on those who disobey the rules is gaining momentum.
Draconian? Not when compared to the possibility of killing a few hundred people, including yourself, because you think the rules and risks don’t apply to you.
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Ben,
Given the well documented crash of UPS 747-400 in Dubai plus numerous other near crashes caused by Li-Ion batteries, I do not think banning such dangerous batteries is at all draconian, merely sensible, but I expect no action until a major and fatal passenger airliner crash by governments or authorities as usual and then the panic will set in.
by amicus on Jul 4, 2012 at 10:19 am
A very good idea to carry Li batteries with you, but with the strictly enforced 7kg carry on allowance, your essentials plus your laptop+ phone + camera can push you over the limit, even if you leave your RC toys and e-bike at home. Ideally, we will need to find a way of packing them safely in the general luggage.
by lindsayb on Jul 4, 2012 at 12:42 pm
There isn’t one, given thermal runaway characteristics. only feasible method, possibly would be to only allow totally discharged batteries, but still a risk.
by amicus on Jul 4, 2012 at 1:06 pm
Now that is interesting. I work in the film industry and we recently traveled with lots of Lithium batteries, over 22 of them (not talking small here, very powerful ones). From Europe to Australia via Cathay, 3 to 4 of them had to be packed in separate cardboard boxes with lots of fire resistant material around them. Traveling Melbourne to Alice Springs, Qantas made us unpack all boxes and take them with us in cabin. But when we went through security, we were stopped and nearly denied access to the plane. After negotiations, they finally let us through.
When traveling from Alice Springs to Melbourne, we were told by Qantas management that all these had to go via cargo hold and not cabin, so we put them all in a bag and off they went. This was the case also when the equipment traveled back to Europe.
So the point of my comment is that we have unbelievable inconsistency about this and many working within our beloved airlines have a totally different message. After reading this article, I wonder if we didn’t play Russian roulette with all these different advices…
by Philippe Charlvet on Jul 4, 2012 at 2:26 pm
Virgin now ask what loose batteries passengers are being carried at check-in if this is done at a counter, but I suspect most of the passengers using OLCI and other do it yourself methods such as the Qantas bag drop will never “self-comply”. Most of the incidents have involved lithium ion batteries, but will the average person know what type of batteries they have? An ordinary 9 Volt alkaline battery left in the trouser pocket, when shorted by a key for example, can cause the key to heat up and set ones trousers alight.
In trying to control a risk, there’s going to be a lot of unnecesary inconvenience, but airline passengers are well conditioned for these things.
by nonscenic on Jul 4, 2012 at 4:09 pm
Considering the millions of batteries that get air-freighted out of manufacturing hubs in China and elsewhere – embedded into factory-fresh electronic devices, I’d imagine Apple and other companies would place lots of pressure on the airlines and authorities should a Lithium-Ion ban be certain.
I know Fed-Ex ,for example has a document with guidelines on how to pack LiIon batteries – and the nastier types are banned from belly holds of passenger flights. But at what point do such rules get enforced?
by Tremere on Jul 4, 2012 at 4:41 pm
In the past safety authorities tried to ban and restrict Li-Ion batteries in cargo areas of passenger aircraft and deem such batteries hazardous, but efforts were defeated by expensive and high priced lobbying by the usual suspects employing the usual tools by a corrupt and easily bought US Congress. Clearly, there is a major safety hazard which needs addressing before more pilots, crew and hundreds of passengers are killed in a major wide-body crash.
The UPS Flt. 6 crash in Dubai of a 747-400F freighter killed both pilots after a harrowing and flying totally blind 30 minutes of desperately trying to land the burning aircraft and that crash was in turn foreshadowed by a near crash of a UPS DC-8 freighter in PA on final approach a couple of year earlier, again Li-Ion batteries burning via thermal runaway.
The ASIANA 747-400F crash was seemingly caused by Li-Ion batteries freight also, but the Korean authorities seem in no rush to even issue an interim report. That crash was off Jeju in 2011. One suspects a lot of Korean and Chinese Li battery makers pressure and lobbying of accident investigators.
On aircraft freighters, Li-Ion batteries are stored in the main cabin with NO fire suppression on most freighters (Fed-Ex is starting to install, but will take years). The fact is that the most recent 777 survived my good luck alone. Shipping such batteries only in a fully discharged state alleviates some of the safety risk, but the only safe method of shipping is probably on merchant vessels and developing much more stringently designed and tougher internal membranes on such batteries. And passengers to often take dumb risks, so put them on boats for transportation or demonstrate all such batteries never exhibit thermal runaway to safety authorities. And the 787 has Li-ion batteries on board, just to mull over.
by amicus on Jul 5, 2012 at 9:48 am
Well, everyone is talking about Lithium Ion batteries, but in fact the world has moved on. Most modern laptop/smartphone batteries of last few years are LiPo, not LiIon technology.
The earlier laptop battery fires were when laptop batteries were LiIon chemistry, which did have a thermal runaway feature – take battery to a certain temperature where battery insulation breaks down and you have an exothermic reaction (leading to fire of surrounding combustible materials). But LiPo is much safer, as it does not self-generate an exothermic reaction, as the Lithium is not ‘free’ to burn, but bonded as oxide (far more stable than Lithium by itself).
Now, I don’t doubt that the recent mis-repaired iPhone was indeed LiPo, not LiIon chemistry, but if you leave a screw loose around battery terminals, you can generate an electrical short and that produces a lot of heat, even though the battery is more stable chemistry… so I am not suggesting that the problem goes away with LiPo, but it is not as bad as with LiIon. The video gear (lighting batteries etc) cited above may well be older than a few years, and hence be LiIon, rather than LiPo.
New LiPo packs and newly-made devices with in-built LiPo packs (laptops, tablet computers, smartphones, video recorders, cameras, GPS.. to name just a few) are routinely flown around as cargo for distribution. But these are quite safe, now that they are LiPo.
The issue of what happens after the iPhone has had some dodgy repairs is quite another issue. Part of the problem lays at Apple’s feet, as Apple insists that you can’t replace the battery in an iPhone, but in practice you can. The problem would almost go away if Apple used clip-on battery technology, like we had with the Motorola flip-phone in the 1990s.
And generally, I believe it is far safer to keep such batteries in the cabin (where a fire can be quickly detected and extinguished). Maybe we need a bucket of water (clip-on lid to prevent spills) available in flight attendant locker, to enable it to be walked to passenger with smoking phone/pad/laptop… nothing prevents Lithium burning better than immersion in water. If you think back to your high school science days, the science teacher would only show students Lithium as a piece of metal which was stored underwater.
by Graeme Harrison on Jul 19, 2012 at 1:18 pm
Greame Harrison:
That’s a really informative contribution. Thanks. I haven’t looked at this thread since early July, so I haven’t seen your message before.
Just one thing: I followed everything you said up to your idea of water being safe for controlling a fire in which lithium (either metal or oxide) is involved.
Bad idea. Very bad idea.
“Nothing prevents Li burning better than immersion in water” What? Both Li and LiO will react instantly with water.
I’ve never had the chance to handle either, but I predict that the metal will fizz a lot, get very hot, and give off hydrogen gas. The gas will probably burn due to the heat of reaction. The water will become very alkaline, [like, skin-dissolving strength alkalinity, so look out, eyes] which is not good in a crowded aircraft cabin.
Similarly, the oxide will get hot in contact with water and instantly produce the very alkaline water. No hydrogen gas, though.
Your recollection about lithium being stored safely under water at school couldn’t be correct. It would be quite a spectacular show from a distance and for a little while, but risky up close. Lithium, like sodium & the other alkali metals, is usually only stored under paraffin liquid.
The material safety data sheets for both the metal and oxide show that any contact with water must be prevented. Obviously, that’s vital with the metal but wise with the oxide.
I’d also comment that fumes from a burning battery would be very caustic to skin and eyes. I’d hate to have the job of trying to extinguish it, especially if water was the only thing available. Sand would be much safer.
by Sailor on Nov 4, 2012 at 1:19 pm