Exploding Batteries

chuasam · Nov 11, 2017

Exploding camera battery causes panic at Orlando International Airport, police say

oh way to ruin it for everyone!!!!
it's not like a mass shooting where authorities would shrug and say they can't do anything....
now they're gonna clamp down on camera batteries.

benhasajeep · Nov 11, 2017

Well they already tell you to bring spare lithiums with you in the cabin. Reason is, there are fire extinguishers in the cabin. Only the wide bodies have cargo hold fire extinguishing systems.

As for the panic when it went off. I guess you had to be there to know how you would react.

pendennis · Nov 11, 2017

There's a series on the Smithsonian Channel that recreates various air disasters. Last week there was a rerun of one where a Boeing 747 operated by UPS, crashed over in the Middle East. The culprit was a load of Li Ion batteries that overwhelmed the cargo plane's fire suppression system. Pilot and co-pilot were both killed, the pilot probably by fumes when his protective mask ran out of oxygen.

Derrel · Nov 11, 2017

Lithium-ion battery fears in recent years have lead to a situation in which the Japanese camera industry has actually down-sized batteries, compared with those in the 2005-era. The Nikon D2x had an __*astounding*__ battery life, but since that time, Li-Ion battery fears, and actual incidents, like the Boeing Dreamliner 3-hour battery fire and subsequent airport fire-suppression scare in Australia have caused serious,serious concerns over the flammability of Li-Ion batteries in aircraft-related scenarios.

KmH · Nov 12, 2017

Ah! The limits of technology and batteries in particular.

benhasajeep · Nov 13, 2017

Derrel said:
Lithium-ion battery fears in recent years have lead to a situation in which the Japanese camera industry has actually down-sized batteries, compared with those in the 2005-era. The Nikon D2x had an __*astounding*__ battery life, but since that time, Li-Ion battery fears, and actual incidents, like the Boeing Dreamliner 3-hour battery fire and subsequent airport fire-suppression scare in Australia have caused serious,serious concerns over the flammability of Li-Ion batteries in aircraft-related scenarios.

BTW - on the 787 they didn't really change the battery much. They just put it in a thicker metal case and added some additional venting to help keep it cooler. Basically just like laptop, phone, and camera batteries. They got some bad ones with bad cells inside them, that had foriegn particles in the mix. And that led to the overheating. But they are still basically the same batteries!

jaomul · Nov 13, 2017

Sad for anyone who is involved in any kind of accident.

It will likely be very difficult to bring battery powered anything on an aircraft soon enough

jeffW · Nov 14, 2017

hate to put the tinfoil hat on, but kind of suspect that a single large bang, that didn't even completely destroy the luggage created such a panic. Two weeks before the turkey trot, not a very hot time of the year and probably the least amount of traffic for that airport (not winter - not summer) was this a surveillance test, were agents helping create a panic by yelling attack???

What really sucks is that everyone is blaming the title photographer and not focusing attention on an over zealous battery manufacture. [the Powerhouse is an interesting book to read on the recent history with battery manufacturing]

Reading some of the twitter anger - right away people had identified the camera as the culprit not the phone, tablet, or other electronics we travel with - how did they get that confirmation info so quickly normally you can't get an official to tell you anything?

davidharmier60 · Nov 14, 2017

Obviously Boeing figured something out.
I've been watching plane spotting videos and there are a lot of those dreamliners flying with all sorts of airlines.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

smoke665 · Nov 14, 2017

Many years ago, my father and I were at about 1500 ft, in his Cessna 150 when we smelled the distinctive rotten egg smell that a battery can make from a rapid charge/discharge. We had already found an emergency landing spot and were headed down, when the battery exploded. Scared the %$*& out of me, but fortunately Dad kept his head, and brought it in. Fortunately we were in an are of flat land and open fields, otherwise the landing might have come out a little different.

benhasajeep · Nov 14, 2017

davidharmier60 said:
Obviously Boeing figured something out.
I've been watching plane spotting videos and there are a lot of those dreamliners flying with all sorts of airlines.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

Well it's more the battery manufacturer had implimented more stringent quality controls. Those batteries are mde of cells in their own little packages. And have tie-bars that connect them. Single cells do fail. Our planes don't use the Lithium batteries, but they are still removed and fully checked every 18 months. And we get bad cells. But unlike a car battery, we just change the bad cell (s). And move on. You don't change everything in the battery. I would guess the 787 batteries are on a more frequent check schedule due to the incidents.