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UK Pilots Want Lithium Battery Powered Devices In the Cabin

Posted by samzenpus on from the what's-that-burning? dept.

AmiMoJo writes: The professional association and trade union of UK pilots The British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA), has asked airlines to require travelers to carry devices that run on lithium-based batteries with them in the passenger cabin instead of in checked luggage. The union hoping to address what it considers a significant potential safety risk, baggage fires going unnoticed in the hold. BALPA explains, "when they short circuit, [they] have a tendency to burst into high intensity fires, which are difficult to extinguish." They further point out, "lithium battery fires have caused at least three cargo aircraft crashes and the UN safety regulator has banned a specific type of lithium battery (lithium metal) from being carried as cargo on passenger aircraft."

32 of 69 comments (clear)

  1. Great by fluffernutter · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now I need TWO bags for my vibrator collection.

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    1. Re:Great by hawguy · · Score: 1

      It can happen at home too.
      My house burned down, and the fire started in a battery pack.
      I suspect that there have been many house fires caused by these things.
      Don't leave them charging overnight or when you are not at home.
      They are like a bomb waiting to go off.
      Your smartphone can do a lot, but there is no smoke detector app.

      Yes there is. Though I don't need a smoke detector app on my phone to hear the smoke detector in my bedroom go off if my phone catches on fire at night.

      And it can't put out a fire.

      Depends on the size of the fire. My phone could put out a match.

    2. Re:Great by CaptQuark · · Score: 1

      Since when do you need Lithium batteries for your vibrators? Alkaline batteries aren't good enough for use while on vacation?

      Unless your vibrators are as big as a Dewalt drill, I would think you can do without Lithium cells for a few days.

      --

    3. Re:Great by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      You have no idea what you are talking about!! How big is YOUR vibrator collection?

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  2. I don't understand? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I thought we all kept our stuff in the cloud and we can just 3D print a new device at the destination?

    Have I been misinformed or am I just a Luddite?

    1. Re:I don't understand? by davester666 · · Score: 1

      Yes.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  3. Please sir can I have more mass! by ramriot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is a laudable suggestion with three small caveats, assuming you don't ban our iPhones, laptops all together :-

    1/ If we are required to carry these batteries in the cabin then a mass dispensation needs to be made to accommodate them and what they are powering if non-removeable (I've had situations in the past where I needed to check my laptop power supply and batteries to get under the cabin Mass allocation)

    2/ TSA etc cannot require that devices be activatable to be carried as a dead battery would mean nowhere else to carry them. (To be honest I nere understood this rule as all previous instances of 'converted' electronic devices used on planes would have passed this test but not the chemical sniffers.)

    3/ If they do catch fire in the cabin, what you gonna do in the short period of time before toxic fumes start killing passengers. My suggestion, get an empty food trolley and keep duct-tape on hand.

    1. Re:Please sir can I have more mass! by Xiaran · · Score: 2

      Number 3 is known as a fume event and there are already procedures in place.

    2. Re:Please sir can I have more mass! by Demonoid-Penguin · · Score: 1

      Of course you can have more mass. Just not lithium batteries (the kids might swallow them). Take lead acid batteries instead.

      Now I know what to do with all those old 2V storage batteries I was planning on sending to scrap - just hook up eight in series so I can continue to use my laptop the next time I fly.
      Sure there'll be some inconveniences, like getting them on and off the plane - but if I weld a bigger base onto a fork trolley I can just wheel them on and off, and park them in the aisle. I know there'll be some complaints about exceeding the carry-on size but it's only fair after all those years of only taking a down jacket and a laptop bag. The bonuses will more than make up for those minor inconveniences - no more trying to get a battery charge in-flight, no more carting around that stupid little plane power adaptor cable, and they should give me more than enough charge to get me between here and the USA, maybe even a return flight.

      Of course if they really want to reduce the risk of fires on planes they should stop making them out of aluminium and magnesium, and having all that NaClO (with powdered Fe) about the place - those cylinders of oxygen underneath could also be a problem.

    3. Re:Please sir can I have more mass! by SimonTheSoundMan · · Score: 1

      Never had a problem with carrying lithium batteries on an airplane. Carried v-mount and many others, as long as the terminals have tape over them or have a case so they do not short they allow them onboard. Also, you can buy batteries (alkaline or lithium AA's for example, even digital camera batteries) in duty free and carry them on-board, this is after check-in and security.

    4. Re:Please sir can I have more mass! by Muad'Dave · · Score: 1

      AGMs are perfectly fine aboard aircraft.

      --
      Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
  4. The logic escapes me, by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1
    Why is a difficult to extinguish fire safer in the passenger cabin rather than in cargo? Especially since there are oxygen canisters above the luggage rack strewn all along the passenger cabin...

    Is it some devious logic that if the battery kills the owner first, there would be some justice? Or it would gradually dawn on to the passengers that these batteries have very high energy storage densities and are dangerous, slowly they would stop carrying them?

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:The logic escapes me, by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I assume that the problem is with noticing the fire. A small Li-ion battery can self-ignite and burn fairly enthusiastically; but isn't too dangerous if it is prevented from setting anything else on fire. The smoke is noxious and any one directly exposed the the flame will be burned; but it just isn't a very big fire. If the battery is hiding down in the cargo hold in somebody's suitcase, it has a better chance of recruiting all the nearby luggage and getting a proper fire started; at which point suppression becomes more difficult and release of enough energy to actually damage the aircraft becomes likely.

      I'd be interested to know what the current standard for fire detection in the cargo area is; and how difficult and costly it would be to achieve better early warning.

    2. Re:The logic escapes me, by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1

      If a fire is detected in the cargo compartment, we could release very large amount of carbon dioxide into the hold and vent all oxygen out to extinguish the fire. Cant do this to passenger cabin. But I am not sure if airplanes use such a fire suppression technique for the cargo.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    3. Re:The logic escapes me, by St.Creed · · Score: 1

      From http://batteryuniversity.com/l... (I looked it up because I was thinking the same as you did):

      "If the fire occurs in an airplane, the FAA instructs flight attendants to use water or pop soda. Water-based products are most readily available and are appropriate since Li-ion contains very little lithium metal that would react with water. Water also cools the adjacent area and prevents the fire from spreading. Many research laboratories and factories also use water to put out Li-ion battery fires."

      This doesn't work on Lithium Metal batteries, so:

      "When encountering a fire with a lithium-metal battery, only use a Class D extinguisher as water would react with the lithium metal and make the fire worse. With all battery fires, allow ample of ventilation while the battery burns itself out."

      I translate that as "fumes will still kill every passenger on board, but at least we can recover the bodies."

      --
      Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
  5. not all Lithium batteries - by drwho · · Score: 1

    LiFePO4 are a class of lithium batteries which do not have this thermal runaway problem. The disadvantage is that they have less energy density when new, but because other lithium battery technologies quickly lose capacity, this disadvantage is eliminated at a year of age, and thereafter, LiFePO4 has a higher energy density. LiFePO4 batteries are what should have been used in the Boeing 787 in the first place, in order to prevent the problems that grounded the fleet.

    1. Re:not all Lithium batteries - by Lumpy · · Score: 1

      Sadly they are expensive as hell. I really hope the prices drop on them and adoption takes off.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  6. first cheeked bag free will help as well by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    first cheeked bag free will help as well as people will be taking see stuff in side the main cabin

  7. How to Miss the Point Completely in Only Ten Words by mtrachtenberg · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No. UK pilots want lithium batteries OUT of the cargo hold. They don't have some odd desire to populate the cabin with lithium batteries.

  8. Hold on! by Wowsers · · Score: 1

    Gadgets with Lithium batteries in the cabin instead of the hold. I'm okay with that. Anything that goes in the hold is likely to get stolen. Heathrow* didn't earn it's nickname Thiefrow for nothing!

    * London Heathrow.

    --
    Take Nobody's Word For It.
  9. Re:There will be more crashes by mark-t · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why would you assume that Allah would need to or even want revenge for such a thing? Assuming, for the moment, that Allah is actually opposed to gay marriage, and assuming that said deity even actually cared about what it was that we do, what would be the point of an omniscient and omnipotent being giving humans what is supposedly a free will if said deity was going to be petty and actually try to micromanage human behavior via swift vengeance for every infraction?

    --
    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
  10. Re:More union thuggery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I bet they can't produce their American Birth Certificates either.

  11. Obligatory xkcd by Tyrannosaur · · Score: 1

    In a weird opposite meaning, https://xkcd.com/651/

  12. Re:There will be more crashes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    what would be the point of an omniscient and omnipotent being giving humans what is supposedly a free will if said deity was going to be petty and actually try to micromanage human behavior via swift vengeance for every infraction?

    If you stop assuming a "good" god than Abrahamic religions will make a lot more sense to you.

  13. three cargo aircraft crashes [citation needed] by QuasiSteve · · Score: 1

    lithium battery fires have caused at least three cargo aircraft crashes

    1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    2? 3? Not sure - plenty of "implicated but not proven" or "something caught fire, landed safely, nobody hurt but extensive damage".

    This is an interesting read, though - lengthy report of incidents, including minor (e.g. smoking bag before being loaded) between March 1991 and April 2015:
    http://www.faa.gov/about/offic...

  14. Did I miss something? by DigitalSorceress · · Score: 1

    Did I miss something? the part where planes are dropping out of the air left and right due to someone's iPhone in the hold?

    I think it's one thing to talk about say... shipping a palate or two of LiON batteries in the hold of a passenger airliner? sure, ban it, but I think this is a serious over-reaction to a problem that really is not exactly the most pressing thing threatening us today.

    --

    The Digital Sorceress
  15. Um, fire suppression anyone? by davidwr · · Score: 1

    Perhaps I am naive, but I just assumed airplane cargo holds had some sort of fire-suppression mechanism.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
    1. Re:Um, fire suppression anyone? by St.Creed · · Score: 1

      Well... apparently, not always. In 2010, "the National Transportation Safety Board had asked the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to install automatic fire extinguisher systems in the holds of cargo aircraft. UPS Airlines followed FAA regulations, which stated that pilots should depressurize the main cabin and climb to an altitude of at least 20,000 feet (6,100 m) upon detection of a fire so as to deprive the flames of oxygen."

      In other words, the procedure was to climb to high altitude and depressurize the main cabin. For UPS Airlines flight 6, that didn't work out. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ).

      However, they had a whole container with thousands of Li-Ion batteries going up. That was the reason passenger flights are now banned from taking on such cargo. It's very dangerous. On july 29, 2011, another cargo flight (an Asiana Airlines B747) with a similar cargo was lost at sea after the pilot put out a mayday shouting "cargo fire" and "emergency". They were carrying Li-Metal and Li-Ion batteries in the hold as well.

      Since then, recommendations are that: containers with batteries should be declared; such containers should be put in a class C hold or another hold with alternative fire suppression (not Halon because that is ineffective against Li-Metal fires) and people would have to be aware what to do in case of a cargo hold fire.

      I'm not sure those recommendations are now mandatory.

      --
      Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
  16. Re:How to Miss the Point Completely in Only Ten Wo by kimvette · · Score: 1

    ... and most watches

    --
    The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
  17. Re:How to Miss the Point Completely in Only Ten Wo by kimvette · · Score: 1

    modern automobile keys...

    --
    The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
  18. Re:How to Miss the Point Completely in Only Ten Wo by TarpaKungs · · Score: 1

    Fuck you. I want to be able to take a fucking camera on holiday and I don't think bringing it is a huge risk to life and limb.

    And so you can:

    http://www.leslikescameras.com...

    --
    Why can't women be like Hedy Lamarr - beautiful, talented and inventors of frequency-hopping spread-spectrum techn
  19. Re:There will be more crashes by Gadget27 · · Score: 1

    Why would Allah need to seek revenge? One would think he would be very pleased with the fact that he can now legally marry.