Laptop batteries on planes are an accident waiting to happen

[Alpine]

Terror without terrorists

WHILE THE POTENTIAL dangers of lithium ion batteries have long been known, it seems it took the INQUIRER'S publication of those shocking photos of Dell's famously exploding laptop for something to be done about the issue.


As we noted before, the possible dangers of laptop computers bursting into flames on an aircraft in the middle of the Atlantic need to be taken into account, as facts hitherto fore buried in bureaucracy begin to demonstrate.

As the Wall Street Journal notes today, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission now admits documentation on 339 cases of lithium and lithium-ion batteries in portable gizmos, "overheating, emitting smoke and fumes or exploding since 2003."

Of perhaps more concern is that fact the Federal Aviation Administration has logged 60 such incidents in aircraft or airports since 1991.

During the past two years, six incidents have occurred on aircraft, including five fires plus a overheating torch that "had to be handled with oven mitts".

The WSJ notes the case of Lufthansa Flight 435 which on May 15 was sat at Chicago O'Hare International Airport preparing for a nine-hour flight to Munich, when, according to witnesses, smoke began to float from the luggage bin above seat 2A.

A smoking case was tossed out of the plane before erupting into flames. Inside, investigators discovered a "charred laptop computer and a six-pack of melted lithium-ion batteries," the Journal notes

The owner of the laptop confessed to having bought non-standard batteries on eBay.

After a number of scares involving non-rechargable lithium batteries, these were banned from flights by the FAA in 2004.

Other incidents that involve rechargeable lithium-ion batteries now most commonly used in laptops have, um, sparked an investigation into their safety, or lack of such. The investigation is on-going.

So far, manufacturers have recalled more than two million rechargeable batteries for mobile phones, laptops, portable DVD players and digital cameras, etc., since 2003. These include a total of 300,700 laptop batteries recalled since May 2005. In a bid to allay these fears and others, Dell's upcoming announcement of a battery recall could run into many millions of battery units, we understand.

The INQuirer