I've wondered how long it will take for them to put an emergency fireproof bag behind/under every seat. Surely it's worth the expense. Maybe they'll do something when it one day costs more in bad PR.
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Rising number of lithium battery incidents on airplanes worry crew
41–50 of 101 posts
Re: Rising number of lithium battery incidents on airplanes worry crew
#42I'm surprised that after all of these years commercial airliners don't have jettison tubes/boxes/compartments ... A one-way, pressure (and possibly mechanical) airlock (or sphincter ?) that you can force a small item out of. This feature would have been useful even prior to mobile phones and batteries. It is my understanding that jet liners dump fuel anytime it is expedient to[1] so this is hardly the worst outcome i…
> I am unsure whether a jet liner can descend to a breathable altitude (say, 10000 feet) and feed "fresh", or ambient, air into the plane. That seems like a nice redundancy to have and I wonder how realistic it would be to implement ...
This is already in place, and has been since planes began going high enough to require pressurized cabins. The engines basically suck in lots of air which is compressed, resulting in a higher temperature. Most of this goes into the combustion, but some of it goes into other applications, such as the environmental systems supplying the cabin with air.
It doesn't have the same effect as opening all the windows in a car, but considering the outside temperature[1] that might not be such a bad thing.
[1] - https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/standard-atmosphere-d_604...
Re: Rising number of lithium battery incidents on airplanes worry crew
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Guess what? The increase in the number of fires correlates with growth in the number of electronic devices sold. That would be odd. Surely a huge number of the devices sold replace prior devices. More interesting would be the number of phones on planes and I would assume that this is mostly flat at this point.
According to [1] the growth in smart phone market penetration was closer to 15-20% than 40% but definitely non-negligible over that time period. I assume smartphones are significantly likelier to have a battery accident than dumb cellphones due to the higher power requirements. On the other hand, iPads are definitely not that wide spread - that number is also far more strongly correlated. I'll admit I should have bee…
A lot of cheap gadgets from a certain large Asian country of dubious quality. E.g. a portable battery obtained from Amazon. It will be a no-name brand and may or may not meet the certifications it actually has printed on its label.
We've basically ceded the gadget market to these producers, most of us don't have the money to buy a genuine Apple magsafe battery (or if we do, we feel like it isn't worth it).
Re: Rising number of lithium battery incidents on airplanes worry crew
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would imagine that the proliferation of cheap devices using lithium batteries also contributes to the issue somewhat. While anything with a lithium-ion battery is susceptible (as seen with the exploding Samsung Note debacle), bargain bin electronics are almost certainly not selecting batteries to as high of a standard as something with better profit margins, like an ultrabook or flagship phone. Cheap chargers also…
Yes, cheap devices are real problem. China has strict rules for transporting batteries that are actually enforced.
Also no lighters on plane, because they know in practice they will be used in lavatories. They will find a lighter, or even just a spring from a lighter that fell apart a long time ago. Beijing airport security is quite impressive actually. They probably won't notice the knife you accidentally left your bag, however.
Re: Rising number of lithium battery incidents on airplanes worry crew
#45> A CBS News Investigation has discovered similar incidents have been happening much more frequently in the skies over the United States. The FAA verifies the number of lithium-Ion battery fires jumped more 42% [sic] in the last five years. I just checked several estimates of iPhone/iPad sales and number of Android users using a cursory Google search. Guess what? The increase in the number of fires correlates with gr…
Could that curve also be inversely related to the cost curve for lithium devices in general over the same period? Consumer technology drives cost of X down, X is now decent option for high-performance technology Y, sometimes tech X used in Y causes failures.
This, here, if I had to guess, is probably the driver of avionics-related lithium incidents: the avx batteries share an awful lot of the supply chain with consumer batteries, and these batteries have an increasing amount of software way way way down in the assembly where auditors and mx engineers might not see. That software might be driving the cells within a particular environment / load range, and when it gets dinged outside of that range, unpredictable things happen.
This is very very very very similar to root cause for an incident investigation I was party to. Military rotorcraft near "hot and high" operation limitations. Many other things were suspected because no one wanted it to be the lithium, but sure 'nuff, the microcontrollers deep down in their little battery brains were not doing what they needed to do, and didn't plug into the bus of the FMS/FMC's BMS (flight management computer's battery management subsystem)
Re: Rising number of lithium battery incidents on airplanes worry crew
#46If a huge fire breaks out on a plain mid flight, you realistically have no chance of survival right? So instead of trying to survive only to get burned to death you should inhale as much fumes as possible to pass out and die quickly before you are burned?
It seems somewhat tragic to me that you believe “inhaling as much fumes as possible” would even be an option. Human psychology doesn’t really work like that.
The logic of inhaling fumes is not much farther removed from the logic of jumping out of a burning skyscraper. Anything to avoid burning to death.
Re: Rising number of lithium battery incidents on airplanes worry crew
#47Some folks in front of me had a mifi hotspot light on fire at the airport while in line to board. I saw the smoke and thought they were trying to get one last vape in, and told them it was bold of them. They said they didn't vape, after which I said their backpack was smoking. Gate lady made them throw it in the (blastproof, I guess) trash can. They eventually got to board but had to toss the backpack. That said they…
> allegiant still wanted to charge us for water. I'd be surprised if they didn't have to charge for water with flights from Memphis to Vegas for $38[0] and Cincinnati to Fort Myers for $44[1]. [0] https://www.allegiantair.com/low-cost-las-vegas-flights [1] https://www.allegiantair.com/deals
The behavior of ultra low cost airlines is often inexcusable, but understandable, and why I don't fly them. Their employees are usually not allowed to make "good reason" exceptions because exceptions are nebulous and passengers may argue why the next time isn't a "good reason" and airlines want that money. It's like a flying cruise ship; the fare gets you a chair and nothing else because the everything else is where the profit comes from.
(This business model is why we are seeing a rise in junk fees and "surcharges". Airlines and cable companies and hotels got away with it for so long with no major pushback that everyone else feels emboldened in light of this economic slowdown.)
Re: Rising number of lithium battery incidents on airplanes worry crew
#48I'm surprised that after all of these years commercial airliners don't have jettison tubes/boxes/compartments ... A one-way, pressure (and possibly mechanical) airlock (or sphincter ?) that you can force a small item out of. This feature would have been useful even prior to mobile phones and batteries. It is my understanding that jet liners dump fuel anytime it is expedient to[1] so this is hardly the worst outcome i…
In many emergencies pilots will conduct an "emergency descent" down to 10000 as part of the checklist (or memory item). It is a dive that you would never otherwise experience in a commercial jet.
Re: Rising number of lithium battery incidents on airplanes worry crew
#49The Boeing 787 had problems with the aircraft's own lithium batteries going into thermal runaway and catching fire.[1] Fortunately, on the ground at an airport. When it happened a second time, all 787s were grounded for months. I suspect that once there's a better battery technology, maybe lighter lithium-iron-phosphate or a noncombustible solid battery, the current lithium ion technology will be prohibited on aircra…
In 2010, UPS Flight 6 in Dubai was brought down by a fire that started in a pallet of Lithium Ion batteries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPS_Airlines_Flight_6
The article claims that there’s one incident per week for these passenger-owned device fires on commercial flights. When they happen in the cabin it’s spectacular and terrifying but the bigger worry is when a fire smolders out of sight.
Re: Rising number of lithium battery incidents on airplanes worry crew
#50I'm surprised that after all of these years commercial airliners don't have jettison tubes/boxes/compartments ... A one-way, pressure (and possibly mechanical) airlock (or sphincter ?) that you can force a small item out of. This feature would have been useful even prior to mobile phones and batteries. It is my understanding that jet liners dump fuel anytime it is expedient to[1] so this is hardly the worst outcome i…
In many emergencies pilots will conduct an "emergency descent" down to 10000 as part of the checklist (or memory item). It is a dive that you would never otherwise experience in a commercial jet.
I was on a flight where one of the pilots had a heart attack and got to experience weightlessness or close to it for a few seconds. Cool to think about what that felt like now but in moment.. not so much. Anyway, the pilot survived and the delay was surprisingly short given the circumstances.