About four weeks ago a battery charger caught fire on an Aeroflot flight. The fire spread to one of the economy seats and in video from inside the cabin you can see a crew member use a fire extinguisher, and a passenger offer up a bottle of water to douse the flames.
Now there’s incredible video of a fire in the overhead bin of today’s China Southern flight CZ3539 from Guangzhou to Shanghai. A power bank in someone’s carry on caught fire prior to departure and passengers had to be evacuated from the plane.
Power bank fire on board China Southern CZ3539, Feb 25 2018.😱😱 pic.twitter.com/cby6E62qRv
— ChinaAviationReview (@ChinaAvReview) February 25, 2018
A flight attendant and passenger tried to put out the fire with bottles of water and also juice, and then fire and security departments assisted in extinguishing it. There wasn’t any additional damage to the plane however China Southern replaced the aircraft and passengers continued on their journey nearly 3 hours delayed.
It’s a good thing passengers aren’t required to put these batteries in checked luggage where fires are harder to put out.
(HT: One Mile at a Time)
These videos show how idiotic the recent (and later rescinded) TSA rule that laptops must be checked into the cargo hold. If a fire breaks out there, most likely the plane will be destroyed. No other rule I can think of helps terrorists crash airliners, without any effort! Insane but just what you would expect from the most idiotic government in the history of mankind.
Cheap Chinese battery, no doubt.
@Gene, I was thinking the same thing!
Even with more expensive batteries, where do you think those are being manufactured? Because it certainly isn’t the USA. Calling something “cheap Chinese ______” is idiotic racism. Newsflash: your stupid MAGA hats are “cheap Chinese” hats.
A bit concerning that more and more effective hand extinguishers are not readily available. Where/what is on US flag aircraft?
All checked baggage in China is machine screened for batteries before passengers are allowed to leave the check in counter. If a battery is detected they have to open their checked bags. This is called smart security, not security theater.
@Ray – for those of us born after 1920, what is a “news flash” ?!?
The headline is yet another example of sloppy writing. A power brick is an external power supply (transformer) for a device. It is a not a fire risk. A power bank is a discrete external lithium-ion battery, and a fire risk.