Lithium battery fires give off toxic smoke in the confined spaces of aircraft passenger cabins
An AvSax lithium battery fire containment bag which won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise for its sheer innovation
A national newspaper is warning aircraft passengers about the danger of losing their mobile phones down their seats just days after a fire scare on a London-bound plane.
The Sun says mobile phones can burst into flames or even explode if they get caught in a seat mechanism and crushed.
In a hard-hitting news report on the potential danger of mobile phones on passenger aircraft, the Sun says: “Letting it slip down an aeroplane seat and trying to retrieve it could force a flight to divert and could even prove fatal.
“According to flight experts this is because inside smartphones there’s a lithium battery which, when damaged, can explode into a ball of flames.
“Because of this, plane staff are now asking passengers that if they drop their phone between their seats to ask the flight attendants to retrieve it instead of fishing around for it themselves.”
You can read the full Sun story here https://www.thesun.co.uk/travel/27043422/dangerous-mistake-passengers-make-phones-flight-diverted/
But what the report doesn’t reveal is what happens next if a phone actually does overheat or catch fire.
The warning follows an incident on a United Airlines flight from San Francisco to London on March 13, 2024, when a passenger’s mobile phone fell between the seat and the armrest.
The seat was moved from the reclined to the upright position which crushed the phone and it began to emit smoke. A flight attendant placed the cellular phone in a thermal containment bag and the flight continued to London’s Heathrow Airport.
Many passenger aircraft now carry these lithium battery fire mitigation bags and the most widely used by far is the AvSax from British company Environmental Defence Systems Ltd.
The company is based in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, and won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise for the AvSax’s innovation, the highest accolade any business can achieve in the UK.
AvSax are now on almost 17,000 planes operated by around 100 airlines worldwide and has been used in action dozens of times.
Environmental Defence Systems special projects manager Jessica Bailey said: “People are now becoming more and more aware of the potential hazards on planes of mobile phones and other personal electronic devices such as battery chargers and iPads powered by lithium batteries.
“The last place you want a lithium fire is in the confined space of a passenger aircraft with the toxic smoke it gives off and the potential for the device to catch fire and even explode.
“Incidents remain rare but they do happen and if planes are not equipped with AvSax they often have to divert and make an emergency landing at the nearest airport.
“This is why so many airline companies – including some of the biggest names in the industry – have AvSax for that peace of mind that they are ready for any lithium battery incident. AvSax have been deployed in action well over 30 times and in every incident the flight has safely continued to its final destination.”
