Flaming drone batteries ground commercial flight before takeoff A pile of lithium drone batteries checked as baggage on a flight from Australia to Fiji could have had nasty consequences: a bunch of the Li-Ions burned in the hold of the plane. Fortunately for the idiot traveller whose baggage declaration said “no batteries” – and the other passengers on the Fiji Airlines flight in April – …
It depends, whilst I agree it is stupid, it depends on how the declaration was worded and what the passenger's mother tongue is. In German an accumulator (recharbable battery) is not a battery, which is why such declarations usually have both the Akku and Batterie listed, instead of just battery in English. I could see this also being true for other languages.
If their English was bad or the translation into his mother tongue had an error, then it could be a tragic misunderstanding. On the other hand, if they were a native English speaker, then they are just a tw*t...
Either way, the passenger should probably have known better, if they were packing that many rechargeables - perhaps he was hoping to avoid customs' duty on them.
And having seen several episodes covering the customs in Australia, many passengers, especially from China, were caught with food in their luggage, because they didn't believe candy and fruit are food...
"In German an accumulator (recharbable battery) is not a battery"
I know it can have a number of meanings, the customs declarations are multi-lingual to guard against the "you didn't tell me" crowd.
"because they didn't believe candy and fruit are food..."
It appears that raw, undried and unrefrigerated meats are in that category as well. As long as you store it in your suitcase, it's not food.
Just for the record, for anyone who's planning on coming to Australia, YES, WE HAVE FOOD HERE - YOU DON'T HAVE TO BRING YOUR OWN. Sheeze.
"ust for the record, for anyone who's planning on coming to Australia, YES, WE HAVE FOOD HERE - YOU DON'T HAVE TO BRING YOUR OWN. Sheeze."
Just a note - in my experience food is being carried mostly by those travellers who are not able / willing to pay a tourist-level price for it at their destination...
Hmm, it happened on a flight from Australia to Fiji? A few hours of luggage roasting in the Australian sun, waiting for the connection flight? Sounds very probable. No need to call that guy names. Could have been a bloody electric toothbrush or a shaver as well. Lately both contain lithium cells. Usually it is OK to have devices with built in or plugged in batteries in the luggage.
And I suppose most people will probably carry a spare battery for their digital camera or two.
But no - that could never happen - our precious airlines always treat their customer's property with the utmost care and respect, right? ... right?
most people will probably carry a spare battery for their digital camera or two....
Or TWENTY FREAKING FIVE of them. This 737 had more lithium than a Dreamliner, thanks to one jerkoff who thinks he's special.
And by the way, they handled the baggage like baggage. They are baggage handlers, after all.
That sure looks like some professional kit. Was the battery that burned a home-made type such as the kind dronebois build from individual cells to achieve a particular mass/cargo/capacity ratio.
If it was not some kind of frankenlitium suffering a manufacturing fault, what was it? If 25 batteries it appears they were counting individual cells- there are something like 19 cells (in 3 packs) intact on the left side- the 6-8 others could have been a single burned pack.
So maybe not a drug smuggler taking a purpose built drone over to do some airborne smuggling of diamonds, drugs, documents...
If not, who were they? What was the purpose of this drone?
1. Perhaps an undercover intelligence pilot, (or perhaps a secret special ops ABF officer)* transporting an undercover surveillance unit up the 'Northern immigration route', in which case we can count everyone lucky that it did not have any nuclear powered components on-board, the kind that would allow it to send back data on traversing immigrants for weeks on end. Imagine if that had burned. (Traversing Immigrants only, as the drug smugglers continue to get through with impunity despite all the rhetoric and blanket surveillance peddled by bureaucrats and their masters. Oooh, my bad- maybe I should have said politicians and their masters)...
2. Perhaps a lowly Serco employee, taking a drone over to have something to tinker with during off-time at some secret Australia-funded Gitmo.
Either way, I'd suggest the many and varied offensive uses for this drone justifies the real purpose of it being investigated. If they take the word of the traveler that falsified the declaration, not only would it be inviting the next courier to take a shot with a more reliable battery, they'd be turning a blind eye to any number of clandestine activities that go on in the island tropics. Where influence and corruption rule supreme, anything is possble.
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