Laptops Could Be Banned from Checked Bags on Planes Due to Fire Risk

Megalith

Megalith

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Laptops could be banned from checked baggage on planes due to a fire risk under a proposal being recommended by an international air safety panel. According to a report, an overheating laptop battery could cause a significant fire in a cargo hold that firefighting equipment aboard the plane would not be able to extinguish. That could "lead to the loss of the aircraft."

Specifically, the FAA's report raises concerns if a laptop battery were to catch fire in a bag that also holds aerosol cans, it could cause the kind of catastrophic fire that could bring down a plane. One of the fears is that by being in the cargo hold, the fire could build past the point where it can be extinguished before it could be detected by the plane's crew. The good news is that the FAA found that there is a relatively low frequency of laptops being checked in baggage.
 
So you cannot take laptops in carry-on bags and now you can't check them either.

Queue up laptop kiosks and vending machines in baggage claim.
 
I would never check my laptop -- American broke a lighted Logitech keyboard in half that was in its original packing and wrapped in a sweatshirt inside a 29 inch Samsonite hard case. I shudder what they would do to my laptop.

I carry mine onboard, although I think that the last time a Dell M6800 battery burst into flames was like never. If they ban them onboard it looks like a whole lot of long drives for me.
 
This is turning out to be abso-f*cking stupid.
First they say "No laptops in carry on becoz terrorists ... BOOM!" and to check them in.
Now they say "No laptops in checked baggage becoz Li ion ... BOOM!"?

Guess we'll do things the old-fashioned way, and just f*ck more for entertainment, both on and off the plane.
 
Has this ever happened?

And if they try to ban laptops across the board (checked or carry on)... wow there goes like 100% of your business traveler clientele.
 
This seems like a bizzare choice, but then again it seems like something of mine gets inexplicably broken nearly every other time I fly.

Last time, ALL of the handles on my luggage got broken. Time before that, my expensive, 8 year old samsonite appeared with a giant fracture and a massive hole in the side, as if it had been spiked through by Robert Baratheon's warhammer. Time before that, a lot of my souvenirs got damaged despite being very carefully packed, and so on. Fortunately, the airlines replaced everything that they broke (sometimes with better quality stuff), but still...

It's kind of funny that it's cheaper to pay the insurance for having crappy employees than it is to just hire better employees. Maybe not so funny to the workers...

Most laptop batteries are not designed for rough handling and I can definitely see how a damaged battery could lead to a runaway fire. Furthermore, it's got to be expensive to replace damaged hardware.
 
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On another note, I guess the 787 is grounded since there are Li ion batteries as "permanent carry on" baggage on every flight ;)

1024px-1-7-12_JAL787_APU_Battery.JPG
 
articles ive seen are confusing. other ones (I didn't read this one again as already read a few)
some say not in checked luggage, others say not in checked luggage but instead can on carry on.
 
aliaskary77 said:
articles ive seen are confusing. other ones (I didn't read this one again as already read a few)
some say not in checked luggage, others say not in checked luggage but instead can on carry on.
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From what I can tell. There was a previous ban for carry on from the middle east stating that passengers from that area had to check them. Now they realize (after ICAO warned that was stupid) that there is more of a risk of checked laptops and so are going back on the previous ban and are instead switching everything to ban checked.
 
No business traveler would travel without a laptop. Including me. Hell I wouldn't even go on vacation without taking my laptop.

Anyway I always felt nostalgic for train passenger services of the 50s. So go ahead airlines make my day!
 
We've had that shit for a while. Probably more to do with improvising a incendiary device out of one.

Probably some self-immolating suicide laptops turned up somewhere.
 
I think it has more to do with how the FAA cannot ensure the quality of the lithium battery being carried on board.
When the OEMs, like samsung, are screwing up their batteries, then it speaks wonders for off brand batteries that are used in replacement laptop battery packs.

I have never had any of my 18650 batteries, that I bought from china, blow up on me, ever.
However, there have been plenty of lithum battiers blowing up in the past, during various normal usage circumstances, so it's not like lithium batts blowing up are extremely rare.

Also, this is the same FAA that took some 20+ years to admit that cell phones and GPS devices aren't strong enough to screw with the airplane's instruments.
 
I think they should ban power banks first. (if they haven't already, Idk)
Most people just grab the cheapest they can find and abuse them happily. They have no clue how dangerous a dodgy battery can be.
At least dodgy batteries for laptops are much more rarer than those 10 bucks power banks.
 
Tiberian said:
"Next on FOX News: Major airlines considering banning passengers because of flight risk to crew and their aircraft..."

Funny now, yes, but someday, someday. ;)
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That's not far off, but the MSNBC article would say something like "Airlines ban all passengers from aircraft, women and minorities hit the hardest"

Although I must have missed something, because people here are saying you can't carry them on, I've been carrying my laptop and like 3 other things with batteries for as long as I've been flying, granted I haven't had a flight in like 6-7 months but I'm not sure where they are getting the carry on part, unless they mean only middle eastern flights
 
Carrying them on - even in baggage you bring with you on the plane - is not what this situation is about, it's about having electronics and batteries in the checked baggage which gets tossed (more often than not) under the plane in storage.
 
How to rejuvenate America's passenger train service and fund hyperloop development in 3 easy steps!
 
RealBeast said:
I would never check my laptop -- American broke a lighted Logitech keyboard in half that was in its original packing and wrapped in a sweatshirt inside a 29 inch Samsonite hard case. I shudder what they would do to my laptop.
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It would likely disappear, never to be seen again.
 
M76 said:
Anyway I always felt nostalgic for train passenger services of the 50s. So go ahead airlines make my day!
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If we actually had trains that run at a decent speed, I'm sure more people would consider them.
However, it usually take less time to drive, even if you stop and sleep at a hotel over night.
Not only does it take 10-15 times longer by train (compared to a plane), it usually cost more.

Hyper Loop might eventually be a solution, but I think self driving cars will be available before they build a significant number of Hyper Loop runs.

If I had a self driving car (a real self driving car that I could sleep while it drives), I wouldn't bother flying if I could drive there in less than 24 hours.
Depending on the speed limit, that could be up to 1,500 miles.
 
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Thank god they're considering this. I can't turn on the TV without seeing another tragic accident caused by an exploding laptop.
 
nutzo said:
If we actually had trains that run at a decent speed, I'm sure more people would consider them.
However, it usually take less time to drive, even if you stop and sleep at a hotel over night.
Not only does it take 10-15 times longer by train (compared to a plane), it usually cost more.

Hyper Loop might eventually be a solution, but I think self driving cars will be available before they build a significant number of Hyper Loop runs.

If I had a self driving car (a real self driving car that I could sleep while it drives), I wouldn't bother flying if I could drive there in less than 24 hours.
Depending on the speed limit, that could be up to 1,500 miles.
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I don't think the hyperloop is a solution to anything. From what I've seen it seems more dangerous than any other form of travel. Except maybe space travel currently. If it's overground it can get damaged, you know what happens to a vacuum tube when it's structural integrity is compromised? You don't even have to have catastrophic de-pressurization. A small buckle and it implodes, instantly killing anyone travelling in it at 300+mph. If it's underground you're basically done for again if anything goes wrong. You're underground in a hard sealed tube, hundreds of miles from anything. So I don't really fancy the idea of the hyperloop. Not to mention laying down alone in a small capsule is not what I'd call luxurious travel. No windows, no contact with the outside world, no human contact at all. But it will sure cure claustrophobia. And the whole idea is stolen from James Bond anyway :-D

And it's all academic since there is no working prototype yet, and they're already talking about actual lines. That's the definition of insanity. They want to iron out all design flaws and unforeseen complications on an actual live line? I think the hyperloop is more like star citizen than anyone would like to admit. It's a business investment with lots of free positive pr that has very little hope of becoming reality. If people understood a fraction of the dangers involved they'd run away screaming from it.

Self driving cars are only a small step above regular cars, and most of the involved technology is at least a decade old and proven. So they might actually work. And that just goes to show the inexplicable nature of the average person. There is enormous pushback against self driving cars, because they somehow feel it takes away their freedom, but at the same time they're ready to climb into a 200 mile long vacuum chamber happy as a clam.
 
M76 said:
I don't think the hyperloop is a solution to anything. From what I've seen it seems more dangerous than any other form of travel. Except maybe space travel currently. If it's overground it can get damaged, you know what happens to a vacuum tube when it's structural integrity is compromised? You don't even have to have catastrophic de-pressurization. A small buckle and it implodes, instantly killing anyone travelling in it at 300+mph. If it's underground you're basically done for again if anything goes wrong. You're underground in a hard sealed tube, hundreds of miles from anything. So I don't really fancy the idea of the hyperloop. Not to mention laying down alone in a small capsule is not what I'd call luxurious travel. No windows, no contact with the outside world, no human contact at all. But it will sure cure claustrophobia. And the whole idea is stolen from James Bond anyway :-D
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You pretty accurately just described an airplane, thus defeating your argument.
 
Any excuse to ban tech from planes. I wonder what the real reason is? And no, it’s not terrorism...

The US gov is trying everything it can to force a worldwide ban on anything larger than a phone.
 
gamerk2 said:
You pretty accurately just described an airplane, thus defeating your argument.
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Don't know if you really don't get it or just trolling. And I didn't have one argument there were numerous arguments in that statement, which one did airplanes defeat?

A plane doesn't need infastrucure to fly on, the air is given, it never goes away, it can't be damaged it's not vulnerable to collapsing due to the slightest damage. And you can still land an airplane if the cabin de-pressurizes, and still can land an airplane when an engine fails. And please don't belittle yourself by saying that trains need rails therefore it equals hyperloop in terms of risk.

Imagine this happening to the tube while you're flying trough it at 300+. This can happen if the structure is weakened by any reason. Atmospheric pressure is not to be trifled with. Guess if you want to compare hyperloop to some form of transportation in terms of risk then you should compare it to submarines, except submarines only need to preserve structural integrity on their 100ft hull, and not on hundreds of miles of tubes.

At first I was ready to sign up to it as well. But I've realized that making it safe and reliable will make it prohibitively complicated and expensive. Maintaining a 100 mile long vacuum tube especially underground is a bitch. Not to mention the downtime needed to actually create near vacuum pressure in a volume that large. Unless you create pumping stations every 100ft or so, and you also create pressure gates to be able to equalize pressure in smaller parts of the tube without having to de-pressurize the entire system. And the stresses of de-pressurizing and re-pressurizing the tube can lead to accelerated fatigue of the materials.
 
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