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Laptops Could Be Banned From Checked Bags on Planes Due To Fire Risk (cnn.com)
Readers share a report: Laptops could be banned from checked baggage on planes due to a fire risk under a proposal being recommended by an international air safety panel. According to a report, an overheating laptop battery could cause a significant fire in a cargo hold that fire fighting equipment aboard the plane would not be able to extinguish. That could "lead to the loss of the aircraft," according to the proposal. The ban will be considered by the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations organization, at its meeting this month. Even if the organization endorses the proposal from its Dangerous Goods Panel, which is making the recommendation, it would be up to regulators in individual nations to pass rules to enforce it. The U.S. FAA has no comment on the proposal. But it is represented on the panel that is supporting the ban, and its research on the risk of fires from laptops is included in the proposal.
How much do you want to bet you won't be allowed to remove the battery and take that in your carry on and stow the laptop in checked baggage?
I was going though some of the rules and guidelines on american flights(I can't remember if it was FAA or other) because I was carrying some hobby camera equipment(*). And it stated that the batteries were not allowed in checked. So I was puzzled when I heard about the ban on laptops in carry-on.
(*) I did the stupid thing and asking at checkin about a controller for a camera slider/dolly I had in my luggage that had 8 regular AA batteries and I had to open my luggage to uncover it at put it in carry-on. And some of my rechargeable battery banks just about reached the maximum allow capacity.
It is important to be able to travel with your cell phone and laptop on either checked or carry-on luggage as you need; these are somewhat indispensable items for many.
The concept of "banning them " from modes of travel is patently absurd and unacceptable.
If the risk is too high by some measure (I seriously doubt it, considering people have successfully been flying with laptops for 20 years), then find ways of mitigating it or allowing people to bring their laptops without causing an undue or excessive burden for travelers --- even if that means the laptop has to be packed in a special kind of hardened bag and pressurized with an inert gas at the luggage station, Or (more on a limb) that the laptop needs a new battery tech or safety cert.
Lithium-Ion batteries are little bombs with the amount of energy they store. As XKCD pointed out, they're trivially easy to explode.
The only logically safe course of action is to ban all devices containing lithium-ion batteries from flights.
I knew we were going to reach this point where our desire for safety was going to conflict with our vast desire to be entertained when contained in a tin can flying through the sky!
So what's it going to be slashdotters? Fly entertained with the risk of being engulfed in a Lithium-Ion fire or be bored senseless and go back to the days of flying with a book?
I choose entertained, screw going back to the days of flying without electronics!
Who the hell checks their laptops anyway? Maybe if it were in a military grade ruggedized container.
Is this a thing? I thought we all quit doing this years ago because it was a guaranteed way to get your laptop stolen.
It is important to be able to travel with your cell phone and laptop on either checked or carry-on luggage as you need
It is also important that the plane does not catch fire mid-flight. As an air passenger I tend to rate this higher in importance than your preference to put a laptop in a checked bag. You can still take a laptop with you in carry-on so it's no different from something like a pen-knife which you can only take in checked luggage and not in a carry-on.
Seriously, they're very powerful and want to setup kiosks at every Jetway.
Boarding, return the battery, departing rent a battery.
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Sounds to me like they want everyone to pass through security with their labtops and let the TSA ask for powering them on and getting passwords and decrypting drives (and perhaps sticking in thumb drives and making copies). They can't steal data off a laptop in checked baggage nearly as easily.
This is nothing but another assault on the 4th amendment.
Not allowing laptops in checked baggage means one less item that the baggage checkers can steal to augment their incomes.
If you remove the battery from your checked-luggage laptop, the baggage hander assigned to stealing your laptop will probably take a big dump in your luggage to teach you a lesson about providing him with incomplete merch.
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Just a couple of months ago wasn't the TSA trying to ban laptops in the cabins of aircraft from different countries? And discussing pushing it to all flights? Sure it wasn't renewed but shows where they want to go So they don't want it in the cabin and now you cant check it... Really trying hard to kill business travel.
If this goes through, I would expect it would apply to anything that has a battery within it of X size or capacity.
Phones, tablets, photo gear, etc. etc.
The only reason anyone checks a laptop is because the flight crew demands it due to lack of space in the passenger cabin. Be curious how that will play out if the rules state you can't check it at all.
Alright, so here's the elephant in the room. It's so they can take your laptop and make you put the password in for them.
... are in our near future. I don't know why bans are the solution when we have fire containment bags on the markets. Why hasn't TSA decided to certify these things and require passengers to store their laptops in such bags? And if they don't have one, just sell them at the checkpoint for a premium? I'd rather have this than have the peace of mind of my laptop or tablet vanishing into oblivion in the checked luggage system.
Laptops and lithium batteries are already banned from checked baggage in all flight originating from Japan (and probably other places as well) -- I ran into this a couple of months ago flying back from Japan. There are prominent signs reminding you to ensure that all laptops be in carryon bags only, and all checked baggage is screened (via xray machine) for laptops and spare batteries before being checked.
rental batteries at the airport sounds like plan to make big buck$ with no whammies.
Easier to detect and deal with a fire, in a pressurized volume accessible by crew than an unobserved, unpressurized one with no access, and hundreds of other bags sitting on and/or around it.
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I always carry-on my laptop/portables/videogame consoles/etc when I am flying. I have heard too many anecdotes about checked electronics straight up getting stolen during an "inspection" of checked baggage and there is basically 0 you can do about it. No idea if this is still a problem, but I don't feel like risking it just to avoid the hassle of having to pull out multiple items into separate bins to get scanned individually.
Then the airlines are going to lose a horrible amount of business. There's no way in hell I'm letting my personal laptop or work laptop out of my possession during travel. I will simply drive (I have to get a rental when I get to the location anyway) or I will take an alternate mode of transportation such as a bus or train. It may take a little longer, and will likely make my employer unhappy, but have to draw the line somewhere.
Lithium ion batteries store a LOT of energy, and it's not that hard to get them to ignite, at which point they burn VERY hot. Plenty of YouTube videos with lithium ion battery fires. Go watch some before attempting to explain how safe they are on an airliner.
A bunch of bad people could carry laptops on the same flight, and short out the battery packs with a paper clip. Not very difficult with most batteries. Even Apple products could be modded to make the batteries vulnerable.
Checked baggage or carry-on, lithium ion batteries are a problem either way. A laptop could serve as it's own timer, with a hardware mod to close a relay and short out the batteries while the damn thing sits in the cargo hold. As an added bonus, nobody can get in while the plane is in flight. Sure, there is a fire suppression system, but I wouldn't bet on it because such fires are difficult to extinguish.
If I don't have a phone and laptop on my destination, the aircraft might as well never have taken off.
So put them in your cabin baggage. It's safer AND you are far more likely to have them when you get there since checked bags don't always arrive on time. They are only wanting to ban laptops in checked baggage.
Yep. It might survive in a Pelican case, which are all hideously expensive and heavy, but otherwise, yeah, they'll get beat up...
The UK was proposing that anyone flying should be able to deposit their carry on luggage ie laptops and smartphones for security checks while the passengers go through duty free and do a bit of shopping. then pick the items afterwards.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
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Isn't there also a ban on electronics in the cabin? So no laptop in carry-on or in checked baggage means no laptop at all. I guess the solution is to FedEx your stuff overnight and hope that it shows up for the business meeting. Too bad AmTrak trains are so slow and infrequent.
I carry a PenDrive, not Laptop; https://askubuntu.com/question...
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