All these everyday electronic devices are powered by lithium batteries
The last place you want a lithium battery fire is in the confined space on board a passenger aircraft
An AvSax lithium battery fire mitigation bag
Passengers had to use emergency slides to evacuate a plane after a laptop caught fire on board.
People were boarding the American Airlines flight from San Francisco to Miami on Friday, July 12, when smoke started to fill the passenger cabin.
The jetbridge was still attached so some people managed to escape that way while others slid down the emergency chutes and three were slightly hurt.
Firefighters then quickly dealt with the burning laptop with the fire caused by its lithium battery going into what’s known as thermal runaway.
American Airlines said in a statement: “During boarding of American Airlines flight 2045 service from San Francisco to Miami smoke was reported from inside a customer’s bag.
“The bag was quickly removed by our crew members and all customers exited the aircraft. We thank our crew members for their professionalism and apologise to our customers for the inconvenience.”
A passenger called Sirenita said on X: “Our American Airlines flight to Miami at San Francisco Airport caught fire as we were boarding. Looked to the back of the plane and saw so much smoke and people screaming.”
This is the latest in a number of lithium battery fires on aircraft. There have been 483 verified lithium battery incidents recorded by the Federal Aviation Administration in the USA from March 2006 to April 2024 but figures have rocketed in recent years and have been running at an average around one a week since 2017.
These figures are just for the USA which suggests hundreds more incidents have happened elsewhere in the world but have never been reported. No other regulatory authority releases lithium battery incident figures, including the Civil Aviation Authority in the UK.
When lithium batteries overheat or are damaged they go into thermal runaway and when this happens one cell in a battery overheats it can produce enough heat – up to 900°C (1652°F) – to cause adjacent cells to overheat. This can cause a lithium battery fire to flare repeatedly and, because they burn at such a high temperature, they are very difficult to put out.
This is why thousands of planes worldwide are now equipped with AvSax lithium battery fire mitigation bags so they are prepared to deal with a lithium battery incident on board any passenger aircraft.
AvSax are designed to continually cool an overheating battery but are made from military grade material so should the battery explode it will be contained within the bag.
AvSax are now on board around 16,750 aircraft operated by more than 100 airline companies worldwide, including some of the best-known names in the aviation industry.
AvSax won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the UK for their innovation and were devised by Environmental Defence Systems Ltd based in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England. The Queen’s Award is the highest accolade any business can get.
For more information on AvSax go to www.avsax.com
For more on the story go to https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/american-airlines-flight-from-sfo-to-miami-evacuated-after-fire-fills-cabin-with-smoke/
