An Air China flight diverted after a fire broke out in the overhead bin. Fortunately there were no injuries, but one certainly wonders when an incident like this will have catastrophic implications.
Continue reading: Air China Flight Diverts After Battery Catches Fire In Overhead Bin
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
in the cargo hold, which the crew wouldn’t have the ability to put out
atmospheric conditions in the hold make battery fires all but impossible - no crew needed to put them out.
idiots with a bachelors degree in engineering/physics will try to say I'm wrong based on theories of lithium batteries. I hold a PhD in the subject matter focusing on the empirical practical implications. we do not need to worry about lithium fires in the cargo hold. full stop.
wtf, aren't you an attorney at a top law firm? now you say you have a PhD in battery chemistry?
The late crew of OZ991 and 5X6 sends their 'theories of' the middle finger for you.
No wonder China has this ridiculous 3C certification regulation since summer. There are many low quality lithium ion batteries out in the market so since summer China has banned any power bank without 3C certification printed on it on domestic flights, after a series of them igniting inside cabin. So they will confiscate it from you at airport without 3C. This happened to me on a domestic flight from PVG to KMG. It was a Xiaomi power bank manufactured in India which I got in India from their store. And they confiscated it. Worst part, 3C certification is only printed in China sold power banks so majority of power banks abroad, or in fact almost all of them, do not have this certification printed on it.
Eskimo, stop pretending like you give a shit about those crew assuming those flights even existed as you stated.
How many dollars have you donated to those crewmembers families?
How many funerals did you attend?
Or are you just virtue signaling like a POS (piece of sh*t)?
You "allegedly" have a JD/PhD and that's the best deflection you can think of?
Even that British alter ego of Tim can do better, and boy did he really sucked.
Time to find a new name before you get banned again.
Bye
Hey Mr Einstein, UPS Flight 6 crashed due to a fire caused in cargo hold by a pallet of lithium ion batteries
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPS_Airlines_Flight_6
The interesting question would be the origin of the device and was it 3C compliant?
Even this was an international flight, it originated in China and it's unlikely the device owner had an international transit in HGH.
And not to mention why airlines tells you to remove power banks from check in luggage. They didn’t make that rule just out of fun. There is a long list of incidents to back it up
I understand and even appreciate the idea of banning power banks. But also there needs to be a list of the APPROVED power banks OR some way to have them be ...inspected, maybe? Obviously nobody wants to be carrying a Schrödinger flamebox on their person at ANY time, and also these devices are still our best bet for not having a dead phone when we desperately need a live one. There's gotta be a solution that covers both the airlines' butts and the travelers!
I really like the idea of certification, but agree that any such thing will be far more useful if there is a comparable certification standard in more countries, and if countries accept each other's certifications of these devices. More than ever, travelers need to have a reliable way to keep their phones alive while enroute.
You can write any post about any topic and your comment section turns to a dumpster fire (or a lithium battery catching on fire onboard a plane) Maybe TPG was right about turning off comments lol
Agreed, Ben really needs to step up moderation, or just finally admit that he only cares about quantity over quality.
China floods the market with crappy quality powerbanks and then invents a 'quality control' stamp which is only given in china, its a total joke.
That’s the fun part, there is no method to verify if this 3C “certification” printed on the power bank is real or just randomly done by the said manufacturer. Considering there an unlimited amount of power banks that are manufactured in China, I won’t be surprised if a large chunk of them are bogus logos printed.
Anyway the regulation is also silly. Your power bank is fine on transit (international) and any international flight to or from China. So apparently your “non certified” power bank is fine for China if it does not ignite in its airspace lol
Any CE or UKCA compliance should be adequate. It is not like CCC (3C) has a vastly superior or different certification process or method. If anything, the over regulation in Europe has made their products super safe compared to rest of the world
And that’s true. Powerbank is super important for me in travels. There should be better manner to regulate this
Turning off comments is the reason I don’t visit tpg anymore. Half the story is usually in the comments.
your anti-China prejudice disgusts me, and it will be to your disadvantage with China's ascendance as the world's socioeconomic superpower
You are absolutely incorrect. “Atmospheric conditions in the hold”. You have zero practical knowledge of the atmosphere in the hold. Period.
Also Asiana 991 and UPS 1307.
Aircraft cargo holds are pressurised. Even then, lower air pressure at cruise can impair battery heat dissipation at altitude, increasing the risk of a fire. Lithium ion batteries combust in low oxygen environments because metal oxides in the cathode release oxygen during heat decomposition, so fires are self-sustaining.
Wrong again, micropenile.
I don’t agree with half the comments (or regular commenters) on here, but I wouldn’t turn them off. There’s plenty that are interesting and have something to offer to the discussion, and the others, well, at least they’re entertaining to read.
How was the fire "controlled"? Does a fire extinguisher work? So as to know if I ever be in such a situation? I've hear that H2O does NOT work?
Penile, ultimate trolling. You knew the pressure points. They couldn’t resist. Master class.
What a disgustingly xenophobic remark, probably from a citizen of the country who gave the world McDonald's and hyper processed foods who are shortening the lives of most (and cresting an obesity epidemic).
"Making product safe" is not overregulation, the same way that forcing car makers to install seat belts (and passengers towers them) isn't.
Thank God for European regulation. Maybe there's a reason the Pope is in Europe!
No powerbank with lithium battery is completely immune from spontaneous combustion. The only solution is probably to ban them altogether on flights and have powerbank rental facilities at all airports for travelers who need them.
Exactly. I love this blog but the comment section definitely needs moderation. But the dumpster fire brings in traffic and makes him money so I can’t blame him. He’s got a family now so gotta pay the bills lol
I was wondering too. It sounds like step 1 is to knock out the initial fire with an extinguisher, and step 2 is putting the temporarily-cooled device in a special containment bag.
https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/1n016uz/comment/nat49ng/
Mary, nothing about what i said was about how over regulation is bad. In fact it was an indirect complement
You seem to be having some sort of crazy “woke” meltdown in the comments. Even on the other comment by frrrp, he is right. China does flood the market with crappy product. They have the largest trade surplus in the world and many times have been taken to WTO by many countries for it. I don’t know if you ever heard of these sites called SHEIN, TEMU and so on. Maybe google them and all the controversy about them
FYI most modern aircraft have fire suppression systems in cargo holds - an alarm is activated and the tech crew then are able to release a retardant of Halon gas - once- then another shot , then an immediate landing
I have replied to you about how the tech crew PUT OUT fires in cargo holds- and trust me I KNOW
We had a battery fire on a CA flight from PEK to YUL back in Dec 2019. A phone fell into a seat which was moved causing the phone to ignite. I woke from sleeping to the sound of screaming and flames in the first row (I was in row 5 or 6). I literally had visions that this flight would be featured on Mayday/ACI in the future. It was incredible how fast smoke filled the cabin. Anyway, the crew was fast. They put out the flames, dismantled the seat to remove the phone, and we continued on to YUL. I suppose we didn’t need to land because we were probably 4 hours out of PEK over the Bering sea closing in on Alaska and there was nowhere to go. Scary!
I wonder if this power bank met China's new CCC requirement which only applies to domestic flights. I flew in June and they confiscated the bank I had brought from the US when I went through domestic security yet it would have been permitted on an intl flight. Strange regs.
They generally have containment bags that are fireproof. Once in there, the fire will run out of oxygen pretty soon.
Of course that theory doesn't work for oxidising substances, but it's reasonably effective for lithium battery fires.
The issue is they can be approved, or even inspected, say a month ago. But then it gets dropped/squashed yesterday and you board with a damaged battery that will fail/explode at some time.
Unless there's now a massive inspection of all batteries just before the flight, the only way is prevention (banning) or having them sealed in a fire prevention container.
Agree with Alan. I wonder if the battery meets the CCC requirment. This has happened a lot recently which caused China to require the CCC batteries.
According to a passenger on board who posted on social media, it was not a power bank but a phone which combusted and it belonged to a Korean passenger, meaning it likely was a Korean made phone (samsung?)