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Comment by politelemon | Hacker News Reader

It's pretty frightening that we're allowed to carry on these potential portable flammable devices as a societal norm. I wonder if aviation authorities have discussed banning such devices on board, and forcing it into luggage, but had to balance it with keeping ~~toddlers~~ people occupied, and the backlash such a measure would cause.

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You don’t want these devices in the cargo hold. As your ability to handle any fire issue there is massively impaired by the fact that you cannot access them there easily. While in the cabin, issues are mostly identified early and they have working processes to handle them.

Yeah but they have active fire detection and suppression systems in the cargo hold.

Fire detection yes, but conventional suppression systems are useless against lithium battery fires. In the case of a lithium fire in the cargo hold, all the pilots can do is emergency land ASAP and pray that the fire won't damage too much of the control wiring until then.

Interesting, I didn't know that. I found this fire suppression company which makes a better suppressant than Halon and is specifically targeted for Li-ion fires: https://cellblockfcs.com/cellblockex/

Yeah but you gotta place your li-ion batteries inside the container of the device/battery and that container has to be rugged as well to withstand the intense heat and not release enough of that heat outside to ignite nearby other cargo.

That stuff definitely has its place for commercial shippers of li-ion stuff, but it's useless for normal traveller bags.

It may be a great approach for new build. It’s not doing anything for the thousands of planes in the air with a suppressant-specific system in place.

Just depressurize the cargo area.

It can't be depressurized independently from the passenger area. It's part of the same pressure vessel.

Battery fires like lithium-ion are self-oxidising.

Yes, so it will get very hot locally. However, the rest of the stuff in cargo will not catch fire, which is the main point.

Lithium ion battery fires are self-oxidizing, according to google search results.

See my answer to ben-schaaf's comment. It would destroy the suitcase of the owner of the phone, perhaps.

Wouldn’t it be worse in checked luggage? In the cargo hold a fire would have time to build up a serious level before detection. I think this is why you aren’t allowed to pack lithium batteries in checked luggage.

You are generally allowed lithium batteries in checked luggage. They must be installed in a device.

https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/portable-electronic-devi....

Rules are slightly different in Europe. It's recommended not to pack them in checked luggage, and battery banks and e-cigarettes can't be checked in.

https://www.easa.europa.eu/en/domains/passengers/dangerous-g...

I'm sure people have thought about it. Currently, spare lithium batteries are permitted in carry-on baggage only: https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/lithium-batteries-baggage There is an exception for batteries installed in equipment for checked-in baggage if certain precautions are met.

While the referenced article is a product advertisement, the FAA lists quite a few incidents: https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/resources/lithium_batteries/incid...

Maybe issues related to in-flight charging could be prevent by changing regulations. For the rest, it's probably easier to deal with events before they spiral out of control if they occur in the cabin.

I agree. The fact that we go to such enormous lengths to prevent potentially nefarious items getting aboard an aircraft, yet we freely allow potentially explosive li-ion batteries is quite bizarre.

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