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Laptop Fires On Airplanes
The risk posed by lithium batteries on airplanes is not exactly new news to this community; but the issue is starting to get wider exposure. Reader Maximum Prophet points out that as usual xkcd gets it right, and sends in an NY Times article calling the batteries a fire risk that clears security. "More than half of the 22 battery fires in the cabin of passenger planes since 1999 have been in the last three years. One air safety expert suggested that these devices might be 'the last unrestricted fire hazard' people can bring on airplanes."
What good is a laptop without one? My own laptop, even when plugged into AC, won't start without a battery.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I hope that if they listen to Randall about the dangers of laptop batteries that they at least listens to his point about the relative dangers of liquids as well.
The backlash of removing batteries would outweigh the safety benefit.
Knowing the airlines, they could turn this into some type of profit scheme. Make users store batteries in suitcase, make users bring special plane chargers/buy one ($50) and charge a usage fee ($50)
All your 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 are belong to us
Could you imagine what would happen if you told all the business people that they had to either put thier (soon to be broken) laptop in checked luggage or couldn't board the plane.
It's one thing to get felt up by security, but you will never pry a laptop or blackberry from a business person unless thier hands are cold and dead.
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Were these laptops Chinese? I've heard worries about the Chinese putting secret things in their laptops. I hope they didn't manage to hit the plane.
The seat trays aren't very fire retardant either.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
Here's a suggestion. Have people remove their batteries while using their laptops on the plane, and instead offer them an electric outlet next to your seat. There -- problem solved.
I am the lawn!
I'm not sure what it means to overvolt a battery. Sounds like something you might do with a charger with a large energy source behind it (like a wall socket)? What does make lithium batteries explode is rapid discharge. Laptop batteries have protective circuits to prevent rapid discharge and eliminate that risk, so you can't make them explode just by shorting them. Of course, they are still large energy sources. The most effective way to get that energy out explosively on an aircraft would probably be to puncture the battery. I think screwdrivers and hammers are proscribed, though. You could probably get something capable of puncturing a laptop battery through, though, especially if you weakened the battery in advance. Still, the explosive force that you can get out of an equal volume of a chemical designed to release energy explosively is much greater than the explosive force you can get out of a lithium battery. Which is, as xkcd implies, quite large already.
If they start looking into this, they might decide to not only ban laptops, but everything else that might have a lithium battery...
Of course, it might be that banning nearly everything electronic from the cabins is just the kind of ridiculousness we need to get a backlash against all this security theater, and get the people in charge to actually take some time to come up with reasonable restrictions on what we can bring on an airplane.
...The other alternative seems to be to go all the way in the other direction: all our luggage gets checked into an ultra-secure compartment, and we have to turn in our clothes at the security checkpoint and be issued uniform form-fitting clothes that can't be used to conceal anything in.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
make users bring special plane chargers/buy one ($50) and charge a usage fee ($50)
A large number of planes in service today (at least for domestic flights within the US) aren't wired for electrical service to passenger seats. The airlines would lose more money in lost customers than they would make in revenue after considering what it would cost to add electrical service to the currently unwired planes.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Headlines; I wish people writing headlines (especially the professionals at places like the Chicago Tribune) would look at what their headlines may be saying.
Before I read TFS I thoght it was about somebody controlling a Predator with a laptop and making the predator shoot at manned planes. Or something.
Would it be too much to add "Risk of" before "Laptop Fires On Airplanes"?
Why is it legal to bring a laptop, far more of a fire hazard than a bic lighter (Bics don't spontaneously combust, nore do they contain as much energy as a laptop battery) but not the lighter? If I was a smoker, after a three hour flight the first thing I'd want to do would be get the hell outside and smoke, and I wouldn't want to waste time buying a lighter.
The linked comic is good, but it has more to do with security theater. Of course, when it comes to flying, all "security" is nothing BUT theater.
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I guess I've never actually asked ("Excuse me, but do you have a fire blanket on board?" "Why?), but I'd hope planes carry a fire blanket on them. Maybe it's not so dangerous if you have a quick response?
Maybe I'm wrong here, but, isn't the problem with Lithium-ion batteries as a whole? Not just laptop batteries?
Isn't the fire risk greatest with an overcharged and/or damaged battery? If so, isn't the same risk associated with cell phones, PDA's, etc, etc (although, smaller battery, smaller kaboom/initial fire)?
And if _any_ Lithium-ion battery is a potential hazard then it wouldn't matter if it was in the cabin or in the hold underneath, it's still a fire/explosion risk. Why would you allow them on a passenger aircraft, at all?
Now I'm not saying to ban them, or even restrict them, allow them all, that's fine, but if we're going to go all nuts over one type of Lithium-ion battery, we really need to realize they _all_ pose a danger.
"Uh, no, I actually CAN'T work on the presentation during the flight."
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Is this really enough for us to go running scared about yet another airplane hazard? 22 incidents over 10 years is enough to make you think, but when there are hundreds of flights a day I would have to say it's one of the more minor problems that commercial airlines have to face and it seems like it can be solved by properly training crew members how to deal with that sort of fire. You could probably eliminate loads of possible "hazards" off of commercial flights, but not without major inconvenience and making the entire flight experience more miserable than it already is.
The airline industry makes too much money from business travelers - who are frequently carrying laptops and cell phones onto plates - to be willing to risk jeopardizing their customers. Sure we all know that the airlines screw us individual travelers extra hard when we fly "home" for the holidays, but it is the traveling business sector that keeps the airline industry going. If laptop batteries were banned there would be too much of an uproar, and if people started driving, traveling by train, or teleconferencing, instead of flying, then the airline death spiral would accelerate. And the airlines themselves have more than enough say in the security theater to prevent that from happening.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Geeze! Do you want them to ban all batteries?
Haha - great WKRP quote!
22 fires out of how many millions of flights, of which none resulted in any catastrophe.. I think I am more worried about pilots updating their facebook pages and overshooting their destination airport by 150 miles.
I'll check my batteries...when you give me 110v AC 60hz plugs in business class. Of course this wouldn't help the international traveler (where laptops REALLY help pass the time). Most airliners have 115v AC @ 400hz and 28vdc systems... Or perhaps a universal 12v DC plug. This would require laptop manufacturers to standardize power supplies and plug fittings (yay!). Not an immediate fix by any stretch, but probably the safest ("low" voltage) most efficient (no inverter inefficiencies).
More than half of the 22 battery fires in the cabin of passenger planes since 1999 have been in the last three years.
What is the reader supposed to draw from this? Will we see 4x as many in the next 3 years? 1.5 years?
This is a great example of misusing statistics to imply the wrong conclusions. What's the degree of relevance? Or is that left as an exercise for the reader, to guess if we have twice as many people travelling with electronics or if electronics are more dangerous, or what?
We've seen iphones explode and laptop fires, but when you use scary events like that and then add some sort of implication that the rate is increasing, that's bad reporting in my book. It's why concepts that cannot stand up to scientific scrutiny (intelligent design, anyone?) can gain such momentum: pick and choose statistics that sound relevant enough to convince, yet mean nothing without further data and degree of relevance.
In case you don't remember, lighters and matches are allowed on planes again. Isn't that a more obvious, more common fire hazard?
I have had it with these motherfucking batteries on this motherfucking plane!
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
Is SKYNET taking over? Should we be concerned. That's one powerful laptop, if it can fire on an airplane.
Because nobody has intentionally tried to start a fire with one.
We take off our shoes because someone tried to light exploding shoes. We surrender liquids because someone tried to use liquid explosive on a plane.
If someone brings an explosive piggy-bank shaped like a Raiders helmet, we will ban piggy-banks... and Raiders gear. We're just proactive like that.
So don't sweat it. Until some 'turrist' uses a laptop battery, you're good to go.
Ah ha! First we get the story about the airline pilots who got off course because they supposedly pulled out their laptops in the cabin, and now, just hours later, we get a story about laptop fires on airplanes.
Conclusion: The pilots' laptops burst into flame and they got lost because too busy dealing with the fire!
See, Slashdot really does have all the answers.
In related news, Chuck Norris has been banned from all Airlines.
Officials stated that "... Well, obviously he's a weapon. I mean, would you want to travel with a nuclear weapon your airliner?"
It remains to be seen how they intend on /stopping/ Chuck Norris from boarding a plane.
Chuck's only comment on the matter was "why would I need a plane to fly?"
We agree.
Yes, I'm serious: Ban everything, and force passengers to maybe, I don't know, read a book perhaps?
Really? You think that would work?
You don't think that what it would actually result in is everyone complaining loudly to their neighbours and the flight attendants about how bored they are because they aren't allowed to have any modern conveniences?
This would cause such a backlash, especially among business frequent fliers, that the airlines would lose more money than they did after September 11.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
The type of customer regular airlines take the most profit from is the business customer. Now, let me see: I can take 4 hours by train to get there and get 4 hours of work in the meantime OR spend 30 minutes going through security check, spend 2 hours on flight with no laptop and work 1 and a half hours when I get there... Hummmmmmmmmmmm... It ain't going to happen.
If you're designing a device to be used by flight attendents, why wouldn't you make it use a NiMH battery? Seems safer.
Per the summary:
More than half of the 22 battery fires in the cabin of passenger planes since 1999 have been in the last three years.
Why not just say, "12 fires have been started in planes in the last three years"?
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
Why not just ban laptops from planes and make it EVEN MORE painful to fly? There's almost zero reason to use an airplane any more as it is...
"One air safety expert suggested that these devices might be 'the last unrestricted fire hazard' people can bring on airplanes."
Really now? More of a hazard than lighters and matches?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
doesnt mean we need a slashdot article so we can masturbate about it.
flight crews are trained to handle a fire, planes carry surplus breathable oxygen and fire extinguishers, and a laptop fire can easily be smothered out with one of the conveniently fire-retardant and incredibly uncomfortable blankets or pillows most airlines offer.
Good people go to bed earlier.
well the obvious solution is to equip aircraft with an airlocked jettison tube. put burning laptop/pda/mp3 in the slot and pull the lever. (works best over open ocean.)
it only holds 3 ounces, and is not effective in putting out laptop battery fires.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
Business travelers often have no option but to cough up whatever the airlines want to charge, so they probably make up a good chunk of the airlines' profits. Business travelers probably have enough of a budget to pay $3 for water inside security, but they probably will not part with their laptop and cell phone batteries.
Security theater apparently doesn't hurt ticket sales (my feeble attempts at a boycott don't amount to much), and the cost is mostly in travelers' time. If they were really worried about security, they could actually make laptop power widely available and restrict batteries. But they're not.
i knew there was something wrong with buying a macbook pro with a non-removable battery...
Those of us who think they know everything annoy those of us who do.
The problem is not that laptop batteries are dangerous, it is that liquids are not that dangerous. They can not outlaw water on a plane, all they do is prevent you from bringing it on yourself. They have to supply it, as the flights are too long. They also can't easily detect non-radioactive cesium. But what happens if some bright terrorist takes 12 ounces of powdered up Cesium, packed in Argon (non-reactive). Wait till they get up in the air, ask the Stewardess for water and pour the H20 into the Cesium. No more plane.
We can't stop suicide bombers. Not on the ground in Israel, not on Airplanes. We CAN stop terrorists from taking over airplanes. Reinforce and lock the cockpit doors and give out sharpened stake knives to all the passengers. Makes a lot more sense than most of the silly rules they have already have. We should encourage people to take pocket knives on the plane.
Isn't this the kind of situation best managed by the free market? Why not allow each airline to set its own level of security? Customers will leave the airlines that they feel don't provide the right balance of security and convenience, and the market will find its own equilibrium. I don't think, for example, that simple metal detectors would disappear if security screenings were no longer centrally managed, but I guarantee that the day the law went into effect, we'd be able to wear shoes again.
I was once given a portable DVD player on a flight that feature a 6 hr playback battery pack since the entertainment system on my seat failed ! I was much appreciate it...
I'm just waiting for the time when you must ship your belongings ahead of time and when you go through security you are issued your official air-traveler gown to wear for the duration of the flight. Your civilian clothes/effects would be wrapped, checked as luggage, and ready for you to pick up at your destination.
Bonus conspiracy points if your gown has a bar code printed on it identifying you which is scanned anywhere you need identification or money in the terminal or on the plane.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
...if only I still had my bottle of water.
I'm just waiting for the inevitable final step to the airport security process- after you put your shoes back on, the agent smacks you in the head with a bat. You wake up (hopefully) at your destination airport (hopefully). Your luggage has already been abused, and all that remains is to get in line to fill out claim forms for your missing property (bonus points to agents who leave a list of what they took to help you fill out the forms). Surely something like this can not be too far off...
Are watch batteries made from Li-Ion?
Yep.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watch_battery
Airplanes need to have fewer laptops and more lap dances.
When it was a private security firm hired by the airlines, it was a perfectly reasonable term of sale. "You want to travel on my plane, you agree to my let agents verify that you're not taking anything aboard that will increase my liability. You don't agree, well, here's a refund." They were conspicuous about it, too, the security checkpoint was a selling point.
But it is no longer a reasonable term of sale. The TSA is a federal agency, and the officers are federal agents. They are governed by the Constitution, which not only does not grant them the authority to molest passengers, but also specifically forbids them from unwarranted search and seizure, which a choke point search of EVERYBODY who passes certainly is.
It is also not the same thing as customs enforcement, which obviously must happen at a border, or at least at a virtual border. Completely domestic travel most certainly does not justify border search authority, let alone for reasons unrelated to customs enforcement.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I can see it already...
TSA bans the carrying of batteries over a certain size (size is their "see, we thought this through and want to be reasonable" argument). They'll release a special video on YouTube showing exactly how big an explosion they can get from a common laptop battery, and the masses will be in awe that they ever boarded a plane with such a disaster waiting to happen. Mystbusters will also film an episode where they Confirm the "Exploding Laptop Battery" myth... the episode will when a laptop battery they stuffed with 11 pounds of C4, rolled in a coating of thermite, and dipped in ball bearings is used to destroy 4 decomissioned planes somewhere in the middle of the desert.
This ban will affect laptops, portable game systems, video players, etc... the things you actually use during the flight. You'll have to remove your battery at the ticket counter, and your airline will give it to TSA to put in a special fireproof container for the duration of the flight.
The airlines come in and say "We're on your side, travellers" and begin to retrofit planes with power outlets at the seats. Ticket prices will increase slightly to help cover this retrofitting on behalf of all travellers.
Of course, 110v will be "too dangerous" and 12V cigarette lighters will be "too big to fit", even though both would allow you to use things you probably already have in your laptop bag.
Instead, they fit the planes with 8.23 V outlets which require a special 103, 72, or 45.8 degree angle doohicky (depending on the aircraft manufacturer) with three and a half prongs, which is now the special "Saf-T-FlitePower" plug. You can buy cheap throwaway adapters on each flight for something like $25 (these fall into 23 pieces or short out after 3 uses), and travel accessory companies will start selling slightly better made adapters for $75-$150. Dell will add one to your laptop for $250 if you check the correct box on the 8th tab while building it online, but it's ok, because 67% of the time the box will magically be checked by default (people who didn't mean to get one will wonder WTF this this with 3.5 plugs is when they open their UPS box and it will ride around in their laptop bag unused for 4 years).
Now, when you're on the plane, your outlet will be disabled, and it will take the flight attendant typing in a special code with your seat number to turn it on. You can buy one of these codes with your ticket, or may get one automatically if you purchase a certain fare class, and the reason for the whole thing is to cover the cost of the retrofitting (nevermind that they already increased the base cost of the ticket to help cover this, and the functionality which allows them to turn off individual outlets quadrupled the cost of the retrofit in the first place). Also, please be patient while the flight attendant enters your code... for safety reasons this has to be done after reaching cruising altitude, so on some flights you may be halfway through the flight before you even get power. (No kidding, if you've ever been on Frontier and gotten a DirecTV access code).
Once you get off the plane, you'll travel down to the baggage claim, where an avalanche of special fireproof containers will come tumbling down the little ramp. Have fun sorting them out with everyone else on the flight who had to check their battery.
Of course, those of us who don't check bags (I haven't checked a bag in over 10 years and fly 4 segments a week), will just be screwed, but luckily the SkyMall catalog will start selling a cool new device which allows you to pedal up some power for your laptop while in flight! (Eventually, there will be alternatives, such as The Wind Powered Laptop Energy Device" you attach to the overhead air duct, and The Solar Laptop Power Supply which you suction cup to your window and hope you have an AM flight with a starboard window seat on a flight headed due north.)
<--------- Whooosh
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| (')')
C _)
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Mods
-1. XKCD writes comic and STARTS a meme instead of referencing one
0. News article on li-ion batteries
1. TSA begins to crack down on enforcing no li-ion batteries in *carry on* baggage
2. Airlines now have a regulation that forces consumers to pay for a checked bag
3. Profit
Personal griping anecdote follows:
I flew recently, from MEM to SNA and from SNA to SDF with just my backpack. It had the liquids (in a seperate bag, that hotel shampoo and my Irish Spring are dangerous), nicer shoes, a suit, a 1000 page hardback, a 300 page paperback, my laptop, and some salty snacks. I had to give it a pretty good shove to get it stowed in an approved location because the under seat space was a hair too small and the overhead was full up with rolly suitcases.
The bitching about air travel and the TSA has gone well beyond a few loud, pissed off customers. Its par now to find most people unhappy with flying.
Me, I've learned to cope. I get a thrill out of finding holes in games with poorly written rules. Both the airlines and the TSA have placed an arbitrary set of rules in front of me. I get a kick out of walking around the airport barefoot, I get a thrill out of understanding basic science and knowing what I can do to ruin a flight thats far worse than what the TSA can stop*, I'm enough of a nerd to watch the system grind away**, and at the end of it I get to sit in a rare-metal and epoxy tube and travel at hundreds of miles an hour.
I was going somewhere with this. Post probably isn't worth my karma mod, but oh well. Lets discuss a little.
*point of the article plus my feet are bare, therefore my well worn hiking boots are emanating their scent freely from their place in my pack
**think about all the people that are involved just to get me on a plane, clerks, air crew, stewardesses, ground crew, security goons. Shit no wonder it costs so much to fly
XKCD did get it right. I was cracking up at this comic just yesterday actually.
Linking xkcd in summary forces ./ers to work instead of looking for a relavant comics to post.
They took our jobs!
terk er jerbs!
dert der derbs!
It's much harder to explosively short a battery if you can't remove it.
(You and I know it's still possible, but remember, we're doing TSA CYA logic here - if they can say "we did our best" they're covered).
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
There are over 30,000 commercial flights per day in the USA alone. Assuming the article is only discussing fires on US carriers (doesn't specify, but we'll give it to them). That means that even if all 22 fires happened this year the chances of a fire on a flight is 0.0002009%. Or in other words less than 1 in 497,727 thousand flights. The simple answer is know where the fire extinguisher is. Problem solved. Since in actuality only 1/2 the 22 fires were in the past 3 years the odds today are about 1 in 2.98 million. Compare that to the odds of me having to share a row with a fatty or a stinker which are about 1 in 3.
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One air safety expert suggested that these devices might be 'the last unrestricted fire hazard' people can bring on airplanes.
Umm... they still allow cigarette lighters... How does an "air safety expert" miss that one?
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
Yeah, that XKCD was pretty clever, except for the fact that they've acknowledges the dangers of lithium batteries, and placed limits (based on Watt-hour capacity) for almost two years now:
http://it.slashdot.org/story/07/12/28/1944208/TSA-Limits-Lithium-Batteries-on-Airplanes
So, when will laptops start to use ultracapacitors instead?
Is there anyone you don't have contempt for?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Just a bit of statical analysis:
30,000 flights/day * 365.25 days/year*10 years = 110 million flights.
22 laptop fires
1 in 5 million odds of having your flight involved.
Apparently someone decided that they needed some press coverage, as I'm not buying it as a credible hazard.
I fly all the time without ever taking off my shoes, specially conceiting all the germs and other nasties you are tracking though of the others around you.
Just say "I have a open foot wound and I am a diabetic".
Even though you do not set off the metal detector, they still have to stop and scan you, wipe your shoes to see if you have bomb traces. They try hard to take your shoes off, but just keep repeating "I have a open foot wound and this is not a medically sterile away. Do you have one?". I had one TSA try to say I could not fly, because I refuse to be scanned without my shoes. I pointed out over and over that I will take off my shoes once the sterilized the area. It was the unsanitary method that they kepted the area that prevented me from removing my shoes. Asked for his manager. Then they remembered there was a method to bypass the requirement.
http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/specialneeds/editorial_1371.shtm
... the occasional laptop going 'Bang!' will keep the Northwest pilots awake.
Have gnu, will travel.
Bring an EMPTY water bottle and fill it with water after you get through the check points. Generally works fine if you put it in your carry on luggage. Some people have reported problems with some guards however ...
You could also probably buy Vodka at the bar past security and fill it with that as well. :-)
While of course he himself also goes into the line, like everyone else. After all, the alternative is to take a train. That is borderline communist.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You'd have to sneak that vodka into the bottle at ATL. They're kinda anal about alcohol leaving the premises. Not so much about the joint being passed around in the back, though.
If they ban carry-on laptops (with batteries) then if/when those batteries do decide to pop while in flight, I would much rather it happens in the passenger area where one can see the smoke, then down in cargo, inside a suitcase filled with flammables like clothing and paper... no?
We should start banning humans from boarding aircraft as well since they could be another potential fire hazard.
That works out to a bit over 3 "battery" fires per year (not just laptops but all batteries) out of more than 10 million flights in the us alone,
That takes it down to statistical anomaly area. and the number of injuries? None?..two? basically minor burns for the person holding the device at the time. Batteries don't just explode you have too short them with a solid piece of copper to get those kinds of reaction (don't bother sending links to people purposely shorting RC batteries that would never happen in a consumer electronic device) at best they go poof. Scary as shit if it happens in your lap but Hot coffee is probably a bigger threat to air safety.
If an Autobot does not want to allow you on for a ride because you are taller than 5ft, it is their right to deny you, even if you just know they can support your height and weight without problems.
The Autobot is a sentient being and they can deny you access for whatever reason, even if you don't like it.
Hmmm... not sure this is the best analogy...
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
"Laptop Fires on Airplanes" - I hope the laptop didn't shoot any planes down! The humanity!
Laptop fires on planes.
Not quite as catchy as "Snakes on planes", but scarier, really.
emt 377 emt 4
I wonder if anyone has tried bringing in a bottle of solid water (ice). Explain at the security personnel that it is not a liquid. No way they can argue with that, you are backed by the law.
The law of physics.
There's two issues here: There's the issue of whether current (or more stringent) security measures can still be beaten by a determined foe, then there's the issue of actual Li-Ion batteries going kaboom. I'll address the later.
Li-Ion batteries are some of the highest energy-density storage devices available to the general public. As such, they *are* dangerous. I design battery packs for a living, and let me tell you - if not for microprocessors and safety circuits, we wouldn't use Li-Ion batteries.
They are the only batteries that I know of that can fail dangerously when over-discharged. You start creating internal shorts of lithium whiskers between the cathode and anode, which bypasses any cell safety circuits.
They go boom very spectacularly if you overcharge them. The model RC heli folks have found this out the hard way, as they tend to run bare cells without protection circuits to save weight. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcwOwf55Rtc).
They have very low internal resistance, which means in a short circuit, they can release energy very quickly. Every manufacturing engineer at the company I work at have welded calipers to cell tabs, from accidentally touching the wrong stuff while taking measurements.
For a good cell manufacturer - and I'm talking about the LiShens, Sanyos, Kokams, and Panasonics of the world, the failure rate is 1 in 1 million. It's just a fact of life. The fly-by-night operations in China, responsible for some of the god-awful counterfeit cells out there, god knows what those failure rates are. And the vendors who use these cells tends to not put in the safety features (look up a BQ20Z70 chip, for example) to make a failure more likely.
The nightmare scenario would be some dude getting some last minute work in at the terminal, plugging the battery in for charging. Then the plane takes off with the laptop in the overhead compartment where the oxygen lines for the safety masks are kept, and the cells let go. Judging from how much energy a single 18650 cell can contain, it could easily do some very serious damage.
With the prices on Li-Ion dropping and more devices using them, it's no wonder that almost all of the 22 incidents reported occured in the last 3 years. Still a small number considering the amount of airplanes in the air at any given time, but enough for someone to pause and think...
Empty bottles are now BANNED!
Bring one through, get caught, go to jail. Yes, the guards are that anal-retentive!
You can buy plastic (or metal!) water bottles once you get past security. Can't wash them easily though. Certainly can't dishwash them (dishwasher on "sanitize" (high temp)).
Last time I flew, USAir wanted $50 to put me on an earlier flight. (Tickets for this run can be as little as $70. Or even less on a JetBlue special.) Naturally my flight was canceled. Following flight was overbooked. And the flight after that too. All told, I watched 4 planes depart for Pittsburgh before finally getting on the 5th. (Air travel was so bad, I could have driven by car from NYC to Pittsburgh, turned around, driven back to NYC, turned around again, and driven back to Pittsburgh AGAIN long before I ever got on board a plane.)
Every time I go through security, I have to buy a new water bottle. Flying out of LGA, different gates require exiting and re-entering security. At whatever it is a bottle every time I go though, this fee really adds up!
There are water fountains. But get up to use one and you won't find another seat for hours. Certainly not one near a power outlet!
Don't get me started on their pay-per-hour internet access extortion scheme. At fee's that would make a ticket scalper weep with envy.
Or how peanut butter is considered a liquid. They seem hell-bent on getting everyone to buy very over-priced barely-edible highly-questionable airport-vendor foods.
"Laptop Fires On Airplanes"
This just in. The DHS has statistics showing that last year, the number of planes being fired upon by laptop toting citizens has gone up.
And gee, isn't alcohol flammable?
I wonder how long before someone figures out how to make a bomb out of a few legally bought whiskey bottles or something. Yes, they allow you to take those on a plane!!
Think about that next time you try justify their non-sense security rules and what not.
Luckily enough in Europe we have HighSpeed Train. ... and no more or less threat than with plane.
No TSA or the likes to bother you
I've long stop flying, it's a pain in the ass and it isn't faster anymore.
Beside, trains leave you right in the center of the city.
"Reader Maximum Prophet points out that as usual xkcd gets it right, " had to get the ad in there somehow. Very inventive.
What produced the mindset that there must not be any blown up/hijacked/whatever planes no matter what? This baffles me.
If lessening these ridiculous security measures means the occasional plane gets blown up or driven into some tower, I'm willing to take that risk. I recognize that, statistically, I'm more likely to accidentally drown in my own bathtub or get hit by a car while walking down the street. And I don't know if this is just me, but the thought of being on one of those planes doesn't frighten me? If it happens to me it happens to me, I'll do my best to fight the attackers and land the plane but if I die then so be it.
In many places in the world this sort of thing goes on every day. Hell, the US blows up a lot of ordinary and innocent people every day.
If most Americans were polled on this would they side with the increased security in return for giving up their rights and freedoms? Has anyone actually polled them on this question? How is this happening?
Really? Not where I come from... I tried to take an almost empty tube of toothpaste on a short trip. As the trip was short I did not need much toothpaste, see? The security clown did not see, no. The tube, when full, contained 125 ml of toothpaste. It was clearly not full, anything but full, nearly empty even but it clearly stated '125 ml' so I was not allowed to take it on board. Of course I was free to purchase a new, full tube on the other side of the security charade. It was only two and a half times more expensive than in normal shops without such protection agreements. I guessed they sold toothpaste at my destination as well, no sale...
--frank[at]unternet.org
"the last unrestricted fire hazard' people can bring on airplanes."
Actually, that would be the passengers themselves. You actually can kill somebody with your bare hands, or even your teeth, if so inclined.
Ah... but completely empty is different. I do not carry them through in my hand, I just pop them in my laptop case or my jacket. They generally hand inspect my laptop case anyway as I have more than the usual amount/type of junk in it. They see it is empty and go on.
That said, the rules of security theater are not written down in the script.
Saline solution is allowed, so just label your water bottles "saline" and you can bring them through security, even if it's multiple large bottles. You probably want to wait to drink any of them, though, until you're out of their sight!