http://news.yahoo.com/us-testing-lithium-batteries-alarms-aviation-officials-200358046—finance.html
Much worse than snakes on a plane!
I wonder how much testing revolved around battery quality?
and wow, just wow. I knew they were on every flight in phones/laptops etc, but man thats a lot of cargo… some of you guys fly an awful lot, and are serious about EDC.
Might want to think about your next 2 years or so of needs and stock up…
While the batteries are being blamed it looks like it is more unsafe packaging than unsafe batteries, like E-cig liquid in small glass containers with loose packaging, usually bubble wrap, that holds the liquid in, packed with li-ion cells, glass breaks when package dropped/thrown/roughly handled, the liquid is then held in with the cells, resulting in a direct short, not blaming this on the E-cig community, there are impatient members here that have changed where they get their cells from because the new supplier still sends them by air, despite the ban.
Each order of Li=ion cells should be individually wrapped in a liquid proof package and only cells in the package, stop the shorts to stop the thermal runaway.
Just my thoughts, Cheers David
Note the news story in the original post is
Associated Press By JOAN LOWY
May 1, 2015 6:54 PM
The actual info is mostly fairly old. I think you can look it up here and with ’oogle and find newer info, and details on how the airlines are handling international shipments as well as within your own country.
Also there’s been something of a crackdown — hard to tell how much — in China on companies using bad practices and shipping cells more likely to catch fire, even before they leave the country, I recall.
2 cents from a guy that flies for a living…
The only way around this is to increase the effectiveness of the fire suppression systems on planes. I fly every day with no less than 6 18650 cells in the cockpit and it’s perfectly safe (granted I only buy from RMM so I know they are quality cells). Trouble is that a fire consumes the same thing that the passengers use to survive at altitude (oxygen). It’s like having at fire on a boat; if you use water to put the fire out, you risk sinking the ship. Same with an airple; if you use a fire extinguisher, it’s going to make the air unbreathable. There’s no way around NOT transporting batteries as anyone could mislabel the box and the turn times on airliners wouldn’t allow x-raying every single parcel.
The only way is to lock them in a separate compartment with its own suppression system (a specialized cargo container) that is air tight. Keep the batteries at a sea level pressure, and if they do catch fire, allow a closed and contained system to snuff it out.
If you want to read something really frightening, google ValuJet Flight 592… oxygen generators heated up and caused the plane to crash. It’s inevitable that risky materials are going to be transported on airliners… we just need a better way to put them out.