Questions have been raised in the past regarding whether or not a single lithium battery inside an overheated laptop could really bring down a plane. It had been previously thought that fires caused by laptops would be knocked down by the flame-retardant gas that is kept inside the cargo holds of passenger planes. However, some new tests are disproving that belief.
- The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recently discovered that the systems that are in place aren’t capable of fully extinguishing a battery fire once that fire combines with other materials that can be found inside a cargo hold.
- Flammable materials like cosmetics and aerosol cans are commonly found inside the suitcases of passengers.
- The fact that so many airline passengers travel with laptops means that a potentially dangerous combination is present inside nearly every plane in the air today.
The FAA’s recent findings regarding batteries have caused government officials to urge the United Nations International Civil Aviation Organization to call for the banning of all electronic devices larger than mobile phones inside the checked bags of passengers. However, that effort was ultimately unsuccessful.
Lithium batteries aren’t just found inside laptops. They are actually found inside everything from popular gaming devices to mobile phones. While laptops were generally believed to be safe in the past, the risks of lithium batteries on flights have always been known. That’s precisely why bulk shipments of rechargeable lithium batteries are already banned on passenger airplanes.
The latest fears regarding the safety of laptops on planes comes a year after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security imposed a temporary laptop ban and began screening electronic devices more thoroughly in response to fears of terrorists using laptops and other devices to conceal explosive materials.
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