Lithium-Ion Batteries Linked to Airplane Fires

smellsofbikes writes "The National Safety Transportation Board thinks it's possible that lithium-ion batteries caused a fire that destroyed a United Parcel Service airplane on Feb 8, 2006. The FAA already bans non-rechargeable lithium batteries from air shipment because aircraft don't carry fire suppression equipment capable of extinguishing lithium fires. The interesting thing is: these batteries aren't being used or charged, they're just being shipped: spontaneous battery combustion. Is this something that happens in the back of computer stores, or just on airplanes?"

Comments

UPS = Ooops

[the eric conspiracy]

Given how some of my UPS packages arrive looking like they were dragged to my house behind the truck, I would say that it is pretty likely that UPS is doing things to the batteries that my computer store doesn't.

Re:squished?

[ResidntGeek]

Nope. Lithium is an alkali metal. Alkali metals ignite on contact with water. The more active ones (Cesium most of all) violently explode. I imagine a small puncture in a battery could let in enough atmospheric water vapor to ignite a battery.

Re:squished?

[Directrix1]

Let me just say that a Lithium-Ion battery can do some pretty nasty stuff. I had one out of my camera (a small Nikon digital) sitting on my bedside table next to my camera. One night I dropped it on the floor. I don't know what that did to it, but it started to bulge and become untouchably hot. I put it inside a pyrex container on the kitchen floor for the rest of the night in case it went poof. By morning it was fully discharged, but still had the bulge in it. I thought that thing was going to explode for sure, but luckily it didn't.