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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."
Sounds more like a job for an exorcist. I banish thee, Steve!
It is an iPhone therefore it is a feature.
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.
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.
they were holding it wrong.
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.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Exactly what is the difference between a no-name Chinese battery, and a named Chinese battery, besides cost?
The name, obviously.
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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.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
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.