The FAA warns passengers not to charge your lithium powered devices to 100% before getting on an airplane over fire risk concern.
https://twitter.com/FAANews/status/1683162628254846976?s=20
This article points out another potentially "greater risk presented by portable devices slipping into the seat mechanism and being damaged, leading to either an unusable phone, or potentially the battery overheating".
I think here they're referring to folks in the business class.
Thanks for highlighting this. I just now read the podcast transcript at https://www.faa.gov/podcasts/the_air_up_there/fly-safe-lithium-batteries
At 5:10 minutes in, Robert Ochs, manager of the fire safety branch at the FAA’s William J. Hughes Technical Center, makes a distinction between devices you plan to use during the flight and those you do not plan to use:
“If you know that you are bringing a device that you won't be using during your trip, it's actually best to have it at a lower battery level. So, if it's at 30%, say, or lower, it's less likely to undergo thermal runaway and the reaction would be less severe. Another thing to do would be to not charge it. So, if you have a device that is off, but you're still charging it, it could also go into thermal runaway in that situation as well. So, it would be best to just keep it powered off and also not plugged in.”
Plus the importance of immediately notifying the flight attendant if a lithium battery device is overheating (signs given in podcast) or has become stuck in the seat mechanism.
Thanks for highlighting, Pacific Puffin, and thanks for going into the podcast transcript to provide details, Accidental Southerner!
I looked up the numbers and was surprised. 1 in every 150,000 flights has a battery fire. Wait for legislation
I just did some calculations, and I find that I've been on 149,999 flights. Yikes!
Here are the statistics for inflight Lithium Battery Incidents on FAA website. With more people traveling with lithium powered devices and battery packs it's trending upward (momentary dip during the pandemic).
https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/resources/lithium_batteries/incidents
It is very important that one should never have any lithium battery pack or devices in check-in luggage (and it's against the FAA rule).
Note:
The statistics covered only US domestic flights and international flights departing from the US; it's not worldwide statistics. To scroll down move your cursor within the list area.
