Smartphone lost on QANTAS 'began hissing, emitting smoke and making orange glow' Those in-flight warnings not to try finding your phone when it disappears into a plane seat? Take 'em seriously people: a new investigation into an in-air fire shows that even air crew aren't good finding phones. The newly-revealed incident took place on a 747 operated by Australian airline QANTAS when it was 500 km WNW of …
I thought the initial point of 'business' class IS to let you continue your work on the plane. whether it is meeting, email or document work. Banning all forms of phone or PED (like laptop) kinda defeats the purpose.
My temporary suggestion is to put more fire extinguishers. Maybe even a bucket of fire extinguisher powder from the ceiling would be a good idea and as a reminder to the passengers that if they didn't take care of their phone, a bucket of powder will be awaiting them.
My ultimate recommendation, however, is to remove/reduce all floor to seat moving/ mechanical parts, with the additional of gap filling protector. If the seat can't move on the floor or it is protected with gap filling protector, then it will just slide off the protector and avoid getting crushed.
Think of it like a modern massage chair, all mechanical parts are well protected. If you try putting a phone in any gap of the chair and start the chair function, the phone will just jump around and slide off but not get crushed.
"I thought the initial point of 'business' class IS to let you continue your work on the plane."
Not sure why you'd think that. The reason is so that you don't arrive exhausted and unable to function as you would in standard class. Many business people only get to sleep while on the flight to the meeting.
> The simple solution might be to ban any form of phone or PED from business class
Or fit a flexible seat cover that prevents crap from falling into the seat mechanism?
It's like £3K for a business seat to Sydney, I am pretty sure they can afford it. As a bonus it stops them getting taken to court when some idiot ignores the warnings and gets their hand crushed.
It's because of the complications of the seats in Business/First with their greater range of motion to 180°. The back tips, the seat tips, there is lumbar and neck support, and it is all powered. There are many more dangerous places to lose the phone plus an unpowered sprung chair in cattle class may well not produce the force to puncture a PED, whereas the mechanics in a powered seat will keep on going. Perhaps they need some electric window type system to kill the power should any resistance be met?
It looks like it folded up the corner of that phone. As the 'bend' tests show, it is not that easy to do - the amount of pressure required would surely break fingers. Not only shouldn't you go digging around for a lost phone, you shouldn't go digging around for change, keys, or anything else you drop in there if the seat might be moved while your hand is in there...yikes!
Exactly. Pull a circuit breaker. Problem is, the passengers won't be so trained.
What we have to look forward to is further improvements in battery technology. Even higher energy density. With luck, we can experience even larger conflagrations when the new 50,000 mA-hour cells fit into your next phone in 2026.
Crazy.
> the new 50,000 mA-hour cells
On the bright side, with that battery you'll be able to get *at least* two hours of talk time. And the operating system manufacturer will get a least a day's worth of tracking-you-around-the-place time.
Mine's the one with the Nokia 5110 and tinfoil hat in the pocket.
Crew member 1: "That annoying bastard in seat 3A has lost his phone"
Crew member 2: "There it is"
Crew member 1: "Umm, there it WAS"
All could've been prevented with a lanyard attachment on the phone anyway. You know, like they used to have when phones were a lot cheaper.
I fly RC planes & helicopters, these batteries are much bigger and far more powerful.
The rule of thumb is if you can submerge it in a bucket of water then do, it will bubble a bit but will cool down and go out.
Not 100% sure what happens if you thrown water over a battery, I have never tried it.
Yup this was a cheapo RC helicopter from China that I was charging up for a mate with my lipo balance charger.
Started hissing after full charge then got a 1.5 M fireball on my kitchen table, thing went out the window and then dumped water on it to put the actual fire out. Torched kitchen chair and my leather jacket !
*Valuable lesson learnt luckily I was in the house and I now never leave shit charging when I'm not there any longer!!!! I used to be very complacent .....
It's not straight lithium metal used for the electrodes in LiIon batteries as it is in disposable lithium batteries. The most common variety uses lithium cobalt oxide which decomposes at high temperature giving off oxygen which reacts splendidly with the electrolyte or other nearby combustibles. As a result the goal is to reduce the temperature as rapidly as possible to stop the oxygen generation and copious amounts of water does the job nicely.
Having said that I assume the fire extinguishers aboard an airplane aren't filled with water if for no other reason than its weight. I assume they had halon or halotron extinguishers.
The older Lithium batteries would react quite badly to the presence of water, however the newer stuff is made from completely different metals and is quite safe to dunk in water (Well, it won't work afterwards, but its not going to undergo a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly)
For those in the know, that is. I read aviation blogs sometimes. This is not exactly a first... in fact, it actually happens all the time.
The only thing that's ever surprised me about this was when I dropped my Kindle (Li-ion as far as I'm aware) and the guy next to me, a sales rep for Amadeus, suggested I adjust my business class seat to retrieve it. I stared at him for a half second and politely declined.
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