iPhone Auto-Combusts On Australian Airplane

First time accepted submitter thegreymonkey writes "Last Friday, an iPhone caught fire on flight ZL319 operating from Lismore to Sydney. This incident is under investigation from Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA). This accident might be related to the iPhone battery again." Whether it "caught fire" may be a matter of semantics; as reported in the above linked story and by Network World (hat tip to reader alphadogg), though, the iPhone "started glowing red and emitting dense smoke."

Comments

Glowing red and emitting smoke?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds more like a job for an exorcist. I banish thee, Steve!

Re:Glowing red and emitting smoke?

[dkleinsc]

The power of Woz compels you!

A feature?

[pjabardo]

It is an iPhone therefore it is a feature.

Re:A feature?

[jo_ham]

Samsung are apparently hosing down crates of Galaxy II S 's with gasoline trying to copy the feature as we speak.

Re:From XKCD to life??

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want to start a "TSA is a bunch of idiots" thread but I'm honestly surprised that this hasn't happened more often.

I somehow doubt the TSA was involved in any way, shape, or form for a domestic Australian flight. At all... call it a hunch.

For one battery that goes, billions are just fine

[Jack Malmostoso]

Between this, the Volt battery going up in flames and on a smaller scale the Belgian Post e-bikes catching fire, I am very worried about the fast deployment of Li-ion batteries in many fields.
I am a researcher in Li-ion batteries, and I know how dangerous those little buggers can be, but also how many efforts are done to make them safer. However, you can't take bad manufacturing out of the equation, and you should always ask yourself why a no-name chinese battery costs 1/3 of the original battery.

It would be nice to know if the phone was ever dropped, or its battery replaced at any point, or if a non-standard charger was used.

Obviously...

[techishly]

they were holding it wrong.

That's what you get

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

the iPhone "started glowing red and emitting dense smoke.

That's what you get for installing the antichrist app. Idiot.

Car DVD PLayer

[goombah99]

Coincidentally yesterday I was driving while the kids watched movies on DVD players. Then Bang a huge explosions and plastic and metal go flying. The cigarette lighter power adapters conditioning electronics had exploded. I didn't drive off the road but could have. It looks like the culprit was a kink in the cord, perhaps from getting caught in a door at some point, causing a short. The violence of the explosion was surprising both literally and figuratively. You just don't realize how explosive your consumer electronics can be when they go bad.

Re:Car DVD PLayer

[omglolbah]

Sounds like hardware with inadequate fusing.
Any power adapter should be able to survive a complete short on the output if it is designed properly.

Re:Car DVD PLayer

[Xest]

"You just don't realize how explosive your consumer electronics can be when they go bad."

This isn't about consumer electronics going bad, this is about your testimony against the boss.

We'll get you next time!

Re:Car DVD PLayer

[scharkalvin]

That would probably have been an exploded electrolytic capacitor. The small ones inside low power devices usually just blow their tops which are scored to act as a safety valve. The larger type capacitors can literally blow up like an M80 firecracker. I've seen photos of TV sets that had a hole blown in the side of the cabinet by a capacitor going "bomb".

Re:Car DVD PLayer

[goombah99]

I just checked the fuses on the car socket and suprisingly they are intact. The conditioner itself (inductor and caps) did not have a fuse. I can't actually figure out which element exploded: the whole case is town apart and the PC board shattered but all the caps look fine. it's the wires and springs that look cooked. Also it did not sound like a firecracker, it was more of a concussive sound. Our first thought was we had sideswiped an elk or someone had shot the window.

Re:For one battery that goes, billions are just fi

[mr1911]

Exactly what is the difference between a no-name Chinese battery, and a named Chinese battery, besides cost?

The name, obviously.

Re:Wait till the TSA hears about this

[Pi1grim]

Then we will just have to wait for one of those mysterious self-combustions on the plane. Then people will be prohibited by TSA on planes as well.

Thought Experiment?

[Greyfox]

Hell with that! I want to see it on Mythbusters!

Re:From XKCD to life??

[AvitarX]

One hand gernade is less than a 20oz soda, high explosives aren't calorically dense, they are good at release.

You may as well say a gram of anything has huge amounts of energy (E=mc^2), extracting it is left as a thought excersize.

Re:From XKCD to life??

[Khyber]

"In battery-powered systems this is usually not a concern and water is a fine medium to put it out with ;)"

Not by any means are you correct. Battery fires are classified as metal fires, and require a class-d extinguisher.

You try putting out a lithium fire by throwing water on it - I dare you.

Re:From XKCD to life??

[Anonymous Coward]

Water is the correct response to a lithium ion powered consumer device fire, as shown in this FAA-video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS6KA_Si-m8

The purpose of the water is to cool down the batteries to prevent thermal run-away.