6 ms·

I feel like I'm having some sort of Mandela Effect moment, but maybe I'm missing something a lot more obvious? I've had portable charging battery packs for at

by smeej 2y ago

I feel like I'm having some sort of Mandela Effect moment, but maybe I'm missing something a lot more obvious? I've had portable charging battery packs for at least a decade. I wasn't special. They were common. But it's only in the last few years that I've been hearing any concern about the batteries in consumer electronic devices causing aircraft fires. I remember hearing about the ones in hoverboards, and then there was one version of a Samsung device that had problems, but nobody generalized to "all such electronic items must be in the cabin with you, and if you lose track of yours, we're turning the plane around." Did something maybe change about battery chemistry that I don't know about? Or did the design change, such that the batteries aren't protected anymore or have enough more capacity that they've become dangerous? I can't imagine there were actually widespread battery fires for as long as I remember never having heard not to put a battery in checked luggage, so what else changed such that this is such a major issue now when it wasn't before?

aoanevdus 2y ago
https://apnews.com/article/russia-poland-germany-sabotage-cargo-planes-b7f559805d7a996dd6aabe8e69041607 https://apnews.com/article/russia-poland-germany-sabotage-ca... November 5, 2024 > WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. > Poland said last month that it has arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and is searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene said Tuesday there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. People have been sending explodey batteries by air freight. In that context, requiring batteries on a plane to be in the cabin where they can be located, accompanied by the owner of the battery could be a good deterrent.
op00to 2y ago
My wild ass guess: prices dropped, causing battery packs to get bigger and increase availability to people who may not understand or care about the risk. Additionally, with lower base cost of lithium ion batteries, you get more cheap crap that is not engineered well.
- LorenPechtel 2y ago
  I think the proliferation of power banks is also relevant. More and more people have come to consider a power bank + cable to be normal travel gear. High energy density (it's not surrounded by equipment meant to be powered from the battery) and people often cheap out figuring the cost of a bad one being low.
muststopmyths 2y ago
> never having heard not to put a battery in checked luggage Maybe not conventional batteries, but you've been disallowed from putting lithium batteries in checked luggage for at least 16 years. I remember being dragged into the bowels of an airport by security to open my checked bag because I'd forgotten a device in it. That was in 2009. When you check in bags they ask you to make sure there aren't any rechargeable devices or battery packs in them and this has also been going on for a long time.
- sroussey 2y ago
  I still send my AirTags in checked luggage. But they are small!
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Checked baggage is actually one of the better use cases for AirTags.
  - josephg 2y ago
    AirTags also don’t use rechargeable lithium batteries.
    - LoganDark 2y ago
      Aren't non-rechargeable batteries still at least a little dangerous, though?
      - Zak 2y ago
        They're more dangerous. The reason lithium-metal batteries are "non-rechargeable" isn't that recharging them doesn't work; it's that they have an unacceptable probability of exploding during the process. Other forms of electrical, thermal, or mechanical abuse can have similarly spicy results.
    - Zak 2y ago
      Spare non-rechargeable lithium batteries are also forbidden in checked luggage[0]. AirTags are allowed because the battery is installed in a device, though Lufthansa briefly tried to argue otherwise after some bad press involving passengers finding their own lost bags[1]. [0] https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/lithium-batteries https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/lithium-batteries [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/lufthansa-awkwardly-abandons-airtag-ban-after-baffling-face-plant/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/lufthansa-awkwardly-...
Spooky23 2y ago
Devices are smaller and portable batteries are treated roughly. Also, many devices have batteries with custom-ish shapes that may be better or worse than standardized designs that were popular before devices get thinner. The other thing is that consumers won’t be aware of risks for semi-disposable batteries. I found out a few days ago that a high capacity Anker battery that I own was recalled last year. Would such a thing even happen for a random battery sold at CVS? I was in a leadership role for an org with about 95k laptops. We had, on average 4-6 significant battery incidents with an ignition per year. Anywhere from 30-250 reported battery swelling events annually. It’s enough that we provided kits for safe storage of at risk batteries to every field office. Now that’s a pretty low risk of an incident, but in an airline environment the impact of that risk is very high.
- ghaff 2y ago
  I'm almost surprised that you had that few battery swelling incidents although I assume that in a corporate setting laptops tend to get refreshed before you're likely to have swollen batteries. I've had one myself in an Apple MacBook Pro but it was a pretty old model when that happened. (Also an older iPhone that was driving my stereo system when I went to replace it after doing an upgrade.)
  - Spooky23 2y ago
    I suspect there’s more swelling that we don’t hear about. Environment matters though. Phones and tablets with wide operating ranges (Samsung was rated for like 0-120 F) have higher failure rates outdoors than iPhones… but if you try to use iPhones in a hot parking lot in the summer or keep them in an outer pocket in the winter, they’ll shut down. (The device doesn’t break, but it fails for the user) For laptops the target was 4 year replacement for most and 2 year for high performance. IIRC, there was a Dell model where the swelling and battery shape was such that the device was super wobbly and damaged that spiked the numbers. Most devices would just get tagged as a bad battery and repaired or replaced. If I was still there or in that role, I’d collect more battery data in general, as it’s both an employee safety and perhaps a quantitative difference that can be leveraged in purchasing.
renewiltord 2y ago
It’s just that when something hits a process there’s a massive step change as everyone normalizes processes around it. Until that moment, rare events are all that you see.
rsynnott 2y ago
> I can't imagine there were actually widespread battery fires for as long as I remember never having heard not to put a battery in checked luggage This was pretty much the initiating incident, 15 years ago now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPS_Airlines_Flight_6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPS_Airlines_Flight_6
- rcxdude 2y ago
  This. The rules got tightened right up when this happened, because regulators basically looked at it and went 'holy shit, what if that had been a passenger aircraft?'
ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
> one version of a Samsung device that had problems The best GTA mod: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IVk8PsSgEI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IVk8PsSgEI
ueusndn 2y ago
it’ll be the beginning of a campaign to buy US batteries rather than ‘cheap explosive’ Chinese ones
- LorenPechtel 2y ago
  The cheap junk *should be* banned as a fire hazard.
- genewitch 2y ago
  Cheap lithium ion batteries are awful, though, so if the US ones are better, I'm for it. Like I know Westinghouse doesn't manufacture their own l-ion batteries, they use white label from some manufacturer they trust, probably LG. But I have thrown away probably 100 18650 and 26650 batteries that just sucked or were fire hazards.
stephen_g 2y ago
Part of I feel like is that 10-15+ years ago, people only owned a couple of items with rechargable lithium batteries in them (if any at all!), and now people can have dozens. So the tiny chance of having one catching on fire is just multiplied by 10-20x just because there are many more of them around. The other thing that was mentioned was that devices got thinner so there's a bit more chance of bending, squashing etc. stressing or puncturing the battery which can cause a fire. And thirdly I think is cheap devices that don't have adequate protection against thermal issues etc., but that's mostly a risk during charging (that's where those hoverboard fire stories came from).
joshvm 2y ago
The IATA rules are actually quite permissive (Delta for example) for checked luggage: > Lithium cells or batteries power many consumer electronic devices and medical devices, like watches, laptop batteries, calculators, cell phones, hearing aids and much more. You can bring lithium-battery powered devices as carry-on items or in checked baggage. Spare lithium batteries are allowed as carry-on items only with batteries individually protected to prevent short circuit. FAA general rules are similar. The concern nowadays is that someone will drop a device into a seat mechanism and it could crush the battery.
- giarc 2y ago
  >The concern nowadays is that someone will drop a device into a seat mechanism and it could crush the battery. I took a few flights in the last year or two and they made an announcement along the lines of "If you happen to drop your phone between your seat, do not try to retrieve it. Call a flight attendant for help." Latest flights didn't make the same statement, but wasn't necessarily listening for it.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    United at least seems to make this announcement on a routine basis.
neuroelectron 2y ago
Have you heard about the pagers in Lebanon?
Retr0id 2y ago
> Did something maybe change about battery chemistry I don't think there's been any single notable change, but energy density is steadily increasing.
SoftTalker 2y ago
I used to pack my laptop in my checked bag because I hate dealing with carry-on.
colechristensen 2y ago
more things have lithium batteries now and questionably manufactured devices that aren't properly certified are as well incidents with lithium batteries on US aircraft now happen about twice a week there has been slowly ramping up concern about lithium batteries over the last several years as a result
yread 2y ago
Note 7 introduced a lot of people to spicy pillows, it launched in 2016

by smeej 2y ago

aoanevdus 2y ago

https://apnews.com/article/russia-poland-germany-sabotage-cargo-planes-b7f559805d7a996dd6aabe8e69041607 https://apnews.com/article/russia-poland-germany-sabotage-ca... November 5, 2024 > WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. > Poland said last month that it has arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and is searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene said Tuesday there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. People have been sending explodey batteries by air freight. In that context, requiring batteries on a plane to be in the cabin where they can be located, accompanied by the owner of the battery could be a good deterrent.

op00to 2y ago

My wild ass guess: prices dropped, causing battery packs to get bigger and increase availability to people who may not understand or care about the risk. Additionally, with lower base cost of lithium ion batteries, you get more cheap crap that is not engineered well.

LorenPechtel 2y ago
I think the proliferation of power banks is also relevant. More and more people have come to consider a power bank + cable to be normal travel gear. High energy density (it's not surrounded by equipment meant to be powered from the battery) and people often cheap out figuring the cost of a bad one being low.

muststopmyths 2y ago

> never having heard not to put a battery in checked luggage Maybe not conventional batteries, but you've been disallowed from putting lithium batteries in checked luggage for at least 16 years. I remember being dragged into the bowels of an airport by security to open my checked bag because I'd forgotten a device in it. That was in 2009. When you check in bags they ask you to make sure there aren't any rechargeable devices or battery packs in them and this has also been going on for a long time.

sroussey 2y ago
I still send my AirTags in checked luggage. But they are small!
- ghaff 2y ago
  Checked baggage is actually one of the better use cases for AirTags.
- josephg 2y ago
  AirTags also don’t use rechargeable lithium batteries.
  - LoganDark 2y ago
    Aren't non-rechargeable batteries still at least a little dangerous, though?
    - Zak 2y ago
      They're more dangerous. The reason lithium-metal batteries are "non-rechargeable" isn't that recharging them doesn't work; it's that they have an unacceptable probability of exploding during the process. Other forms of electrical, thermal, or mechanical abuse can have similarly spicy results.
  - Zak 2y ago
    Spare non-rechargeable lithium batteries are also forbidden in checked luggage[0]. AirTags are allowed because the battery is installed in a device, though Lufthansa briefly tried to argue otherwise after some bad press involving passengers finding their own lost bags[1]. [0] https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/lithium-batteries https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/lithium-batteries [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/lufthansa-awkwardly-abandons-airtag-ban-after-baffling-face-plant/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/lufthansa-awkwardly-...

Spooky23 2y ago

Devices are smaller and portable batteries are treated roughly. Also, many devices have batteries with custom-ish shapes that may be better or worse than standardized designs that were popular before devices get thinner. The other thing is that consumers won’t be aware of risks for semi-disposable batteries. I found out a few days ago that a high capacity Anker battery that I own was recalled last year. Would such a thing even happen for a random battery sold at CVS? I was in a leadership role for an org with about 95k laptops. We had, on average 4-6 significant battery incidents with an ignition per year. Anywhere from 30-250 reported battery swelling events annually. It’s enough that we provided kits for safe storage of at risk batteries to every field office. Now that’s a pretty low risk of an incident, but in an airline environment the impact of that risk is very high.

ghaff 2y ago
I'm almost surprised that you had that few battery swelling incidents although I assume that in a corporate setting laptops tend to get refreshed before you're likely to have swollen batteries. I've had one myself in an Apple MacBook Pro but it was a pretty old model when that happened. (Also an older iPhone that was driving my stereo system when I went to replace it after doing an upgrade.)
- Spooky23 2y ago
  I suspect there’s more swelling that we don’t hear about. Environment matters though. Phones and tablets with wide operating ranges (Samsung was rated for like 0-120 F) have higher failure rates outdoors than iPhones… but if you try to use iPhones in a hot parking lot in the summer or keep them in an outer pocket in the winter, they’ll shut down. (The device doesn’t break, but it fails for the user) For laptops the target was 4 year replacement for most and 2 year for high performance. IIRC, there was a Dell model where the swelling and battery shape was such that the device was super wobbly and damaged that spiked the numbers. Most devices would just get tagged as a bad battery and repaired or replaced. If I was still there or in that role, I’d collect more battery data in general, as it’s both an employee safety and perhaps a quantitative difference that can be leveraged in purchasing.

renewiltord 2y ago

It’s just that when something hits a process there’s a massive step change as everyone normalizes processes around it. Until that moment, rare events are all that you see.

rsynnott 2y ago

> I can't imagine there were actually widespread battery fires for as long as I remember never having heard not to put a battery in checked luggage This was pretty much the initiating incident, 15 years ago now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPS_Airlines_Flight_6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPS_Airlines_Flight_6

rcxdude 2y ago
This. The rules got tightened right up when this happened, because regulators basically looked at it and went 'holy shit, what if that had been a passenger aircraft?'

ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago

> one version of a Samsung device that had problems The best GTA mod: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IVk8PsSgEI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IVk8PsSgEI

ueusndn 2y ago

it’ll be the beginning of a campaign to buy US batteries rather than ‘cheap explosive’ Chinese ones

LorenPechtel 2y ago
The cheap junk *should be* banned as a fire hazard.
genewitch 2y ago
Cheap lithium ion batteries are awful, though, so if the US ones are better, I'm for it. Like I know Westinghouse doesn't manufacture their own l-ion batteries, they use white label from some manufacturer they trust, probably LG. But I have thrown away probably 100 18650 and 26650 batteries that just sucked or were fire hazards.

stephen_g 2y ago

Part of I feel like is that 10-15+ years ago, people only owned a couple of items with rechargable lithium batteries in them (if any at all!), and now people can have dozens. So the tiny chance of having one catching on fire is just multiplied by 10-20x just because there are many more of them around. The other thing that was mentioned was that devices got thinner so there's a bit more chance of bending, squashing etc. stressing or puncturing the battery which can cause a fire. And thirdly I think is cheap devices that don't have adequate protection against thermal issues etc., but that's mostly a risk during charging (that's where those hoverboard fire stories came from).

joshvm 2y ago

The IATA rules are actually quite permissive (Delta for example) for checked luggage: > Lithium cells or batteries power many consumer electronic devices and medical devices, like watches, laptop batteries, calculators, cell phones, hearing aids and much more. You can bring lithium-battery powered devices as carry-on items or in checked baggage. Spare lithium batteries are allowed as carry-on items only with batteries individually protected to prevent short circuit. FAA general rules are similar. The concern nowadays is that someone will drop a device into a seat mechanism and it could crush the battery.

giarc 2y ago
>The concern nowadays is that someone will drop a device into a seat mechanism and it could crush the battery. I took a few flights in the last year or two and they made an announcement along the lines of "If you happen to drop your phone between your seat, do not try to retrieve it. Call a flight attendant for help." Latest flights didn't make the same statement, but wasn't necessarily listening for it.
- ghaff 2y ago
  United at least seems to make this announcement on a routine basis.

neuroelectron 2y ago

Have you heard about the pagers in Lebanon?

Retr0id 2y ago

> Did something maybe change about battery chemistry I don't think there's been any single notable change, but energy density is steadily increasing.

SoftTalker 2y ago

I used to pack my laptop in my checked bag because I hate dealing with carry-on.

colechristensen 2y ago

more things have lithium batteries now and questionably manufactured devices that aren't properly certified are as well incidents with lithium batteries on US aircraft now happen about twice a week there has been slowly ramping up concern about lithium batteries over the last several years as a result

yread 2y ago

Note 7 introduced a lot of people to spicy pillows, it launched in 2016