American Laptop Fire

The only saving grace for these occurring, are that a phone or laptop that suffers a thermal runaway of a Li battery, the battery in those is so small, that the actual lithium fire burns for a very short time before the battery itself is off-gassed. What you’re left with is the residual Class A fire…..burning plastic case, maybe some fabric or floor that has caught fire. A residual fire that can be extinguished quickly if tackled quickly. As mentioned, the danger comes with either a ton of Li batteries being carried in heavy cargo that ignite, or even a small number of batteries that ignite and burn for sufficient time to ignite other items around them in a cargo hold or other normally inaccessible area during flight. I agree, we are likely going to see something akin to a UPS 5 accident again.
 
MikeD said:
The only saving grace for these occurring, are that a phone or laptop that suffers a thermal runaway of a Li battery, the battery in those is so small, that the actual lithium fire burns for a very short time before the battery itself is off-gassed. What you’re left with is the residual Class A fire…..burning plastic case, maybe some fabric or floor that has caught fire. A residual fire that can be extinguished quickly if tackled quickly. As mentioned, the danger comes with either a ton of Li batteries being carried in heavy cargo that ignite, or even a small number of batteries that ignite and burn for sufficient time to ignite other items around them in a cargo hold or other normally inaccessible area during flight. I agree, we are likely going to see something akin to a UPS 5 accident again.
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It's my understanding that TSA removes these batteries from checked bags if they show on a scan.
 
arkavgal said:
It's my understanding that TSA removes these batteries from checked bags if they show on a scan.
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Am not sure if that’s what they are looking for necessarily on a scan of checked bags, as the Li battery restriction is an airline/FAA safety prohibition, not necessarily a TSA prohibition. I could be mistaken, but I don’t believe the Li batteries in things like laptops or phones or chargers, are droids they are looking for or would otherwise notice. Now, a large bulk shipment of Li batteries inside checked baggage might get their attention as to what it is.
 
MikeD said:
Am not sure if that’s what they are looking for necessarily on a scan of checked bags, as the Li battery restriction is an airline/FAA safety prohibition, not necessarily a TSA prohibition. I could be mistaken, but I don’t believe the Li batteries in things like laptops or phones or chargers, are droids they are looking for or would otherwise notice. Now, a large bulk shipment of Li batteries inside checked baggage might get their attention as to what it is.
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If they’re nabbing people for drugs, large amounts of cash, or immigration status, but not screening things that are an actual safety hazard to aviation, what is the point of the billions we’re dumping into this supposed “security” agency other than yet another surveillance state and jobs program?
 
Roger Roger said:
If they’re nabbing people for drugs, large amounts of cash, or immigration status, but not screening things that are an actual safety hazard to aviation, what is the point of the billions we’re dumping into this supposed “security” agency other than yet another surveillance state and jobs program?
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they’d have to be then be seizing anything and everything that could potentially have the smallest Li battery then; that’s after identifying it correctly. Who knows, they might already be doing it.

TSA already is a jobs program, has been for awhile. There was nothing wrong with airport security on 9/11. The hijackers didn’t get through security with anything not already allowed in an airliner cabin at the time. Security was not breached in any way, they just capitalized both on the rules at that time, and the cultural norm of how hijackings were dealt with then. There was no need to create the huge agency that TSA is, much less a few more, besides feel-good window dressing. Same with FFDO program, mostly a feel good program.
 
where things would become concerning, are passengers who take a carryon or small luggage through security, with Li battery powered items in them, then at the gate, they gate-check them for the cargo hold and the items are still in their bags.
 
MikeD said:
where things would become concerning, are passengers who take a carryon or small luggage through security, with Li battery powered items in them, then at the gate, they gate-check them for the cargo hold and the items are still in their bags.
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And then they realize it right after pushback, that leads to a confused delay coordinating with ops while you block the alley waiting for their permission to ho back into the gate you just left. Followed by a bizarrely long 45 minute wait to find the bag, remove the items in question. Then push back again and find yourself no longer at the head of a long line to depart but now at the back of the line leading to a nearly 2 hour taxi time before getting airborne.

Just one more reason I hate flying out of NYC (JFK in this particular instance).
 
Boris Badenov said:
6. Not to be pedantic, I'm sure everyone knew what you were talking about, but our AI overlords will give me extra kibble for clearing it up.
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dumb phone keyboard fat finger push. yes, 6 indeed. not pedantic at all, want to make sure things like that are correct; as they should be.
 
Karnage said:
And then they realize it right after pushback, that leads to a confused delay coordinating with ops while you block the alley waiting for their permission to ho back into the gate you just left. Followed by a bizarrely long 45 minute wait to find the bag, remove the items in question. Then push back again and find yourself no longer at the head of a long line to depart but now at the back of the line leading to a nearly 2 hour taxi time before getting airborne.

Just one more reason I hate flying out of NYC (JFK in this particular instance).
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and that would be best case. worst case, the pax in question forgets about it or it’s something they don’t need, and it goes flying in the cargo hold.
 
I could be wrong about it, but that's what AI said when I looked up the topic last month.

A little anecdote that's peripherally related to this topic. My kid traveled around the globe last month from the US. Scotland, the Japan. We traveled on Hainan Airlines EDI-PEK-KIX. Single ticket.

For reasons I still don't know, the agent at EDI only checked our bags through PEK. He told me he could only print a boarding pass for EDI-PEK, but didn't mention that our bags were only checked to PEK. It didn't dawn on me until we arrived at PEK that our bags were checked only to that airport. The Chinese customs agent didn't understand why this happened, but she was kind and helpful. If anyone knows why this may have happened, feel free to chime in.

So we had less than 4 hours before the plane to Kansai boarded. In that time, we scrambled and applied for and got approved for a Chinese VISA, went through the entire entry process for China, got our bags, rechecked our bags and arrived at our gate with over an hour to spare. The airport and airport workers were very efficient.

So about batteries. The airport required all batteries removed from bags for inspection at the security check point. We were rushed and didn't pay attention. We had our laptop and tablet out, but not our 5 power banks in our bags. They flagged our 4 carry-on's and even knew which compartments the batteries were in. Once they looked at the batteries, we were good to go. If the Chinese could see all of those batteries, I'm sure that TSA has the technology to see batteries in checked bags, if they want to.
 
Karnage said:
And then they realize it right after pushback, that leads to a confused delay coordinating with ops while you block the alley waiting for their permission to ho back into the gate you just left. Followed by a bizarrely long 45 minute wait to find the bag, remove the items in question. Then push back again and find yourself no longer at the head of a long line to depart but now at the back of the line leading to a nearly 2 hour taxi time before getting airborne.

Just one more reason I hate flying out of NYC (JFK in this particular instance).
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Have you been spying on me
 
Roger Roger said:
Have you been spying on me
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HA! Every trip I work that passes through any of the NYC airports is an adventure. Had I wanted to deal with all the *gestures wildly* “stuff” that happens on the east coast I could have bid an east coast base. I bid SEA for a reason, not to be flying the NY-FL shuttle. Scheduling however…

Oh well, the life of domestic sluggery shall soon be behind me.
 
Karnage said:
HA! Every trip I work that passes through any of the NYC airports is an adventure. Had I wanted to deal with all the *gestures wildly* “stuff” that happens on the east coast I could have bid an east coast base. I bid SEA for a reason, not to be flying the NY-FL shuttle. Scheduling however…

Oh well, the life of domestic sluggery shall soon be behind me.
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Bid avoid JFK, LGA has worked wonders for me for 2+years now, but I might have a little bit more relative seniority.
 
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