iPad Jammed in Seat Forces Emergency Landing of Airplane Carrying 400 Passengers (yahoo.com) 75
An anonymous reader shared this report from Business Insider:
A Lufthansa flight carrying 461 passengers had to divert after someone's tablet became "jammed" in a business-class seat.
The Airbus A380 took off from Los Angeles on Wednesday, bound for Munich, and had been flying for around three hours when the pilots diverted to Boston Logan International Airport. In a statement to Business Insider, an airline spokesperson said the tablet had become "jammed in a Business Class seat" and had "already shown visible signs of deformation due to the seat's movements" when the flight diverted. [The aviation site] Simply Flying, which first reported the news, said the device was an iPad.
The decision to divert was taken "to eliminate any potential risk, particularly with regard to possible overheating," the spokesperson added, saying that it was the joint decision of the crew and air traffic control. Lithium batteries pose a safety risk if damaged, punctured, or crushed... In a confined space like an aircraft cabin, a lithium battery fire poses a serious hazard to the passengers onboard. Last year, a Breeze Airways flight from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh had to make an emergency landing in Albuquerque after a passenger's laptop caught fire.
The Airbus A380 took off from Los Angeles on Wednesday, bound for Munich, and had been flying for around three hours when the pilots diverted to Boston Logan International Airport. In a statement to Business Insider, an airline spokesperson said the tablet had become "jammed in a Business Class seat" and had "already shown visible signs of deformation due to the seat's movements" when the flight diverted. [The aviation site] Simply Flying, which first reported the news, said the device was an iPad.
The decision to divert was taken "to eliminate any potential risk, particularly with regard to possible overheating," the spokesperson added, saying that it was the joint decision of the crew and air traffic control. Lithium batteries pose a safety risk if damaged, punctured, or crushed... In a confined space like an aircraft cabin, a lithium battery fire poses a serious hazard to the passengers onboard. Last year, a Breeze Airways flight from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh had to make an emergency landing in Albuquerque after a passenger's laptop caught fire.
Re: (Score:1)
A pub / beer garden I frequent in Germany has a student dorm on top of it.
One of the WiFi networks is called: "terror network".
Re: Reminds me of a prank I like to do... (Score:2)
Try "allahu akbar!" and see what happens.
Re: Reminds me of a prank I like to do... (Score:3)
Your legal fees
Re: (Score:2)
Or "Gay_Porn_Server"
Yeah, I've seen Airplane! enough times to know where this is going. The captain browses the entire collection and ends up feeling quite dejected when none of the, uh, "content" is underage.
Re: (Score:1)
So Much Stupid (Score:2)
On so many levels.
Re: (Score:3)
I agree with this. More people should file frivolous lawsuits. Stupid people should experience the pain of being separated from their money.
Re: (Score:2)
They can't sue the passenger. The decision to divert the flight was made by the carrier, not the passenger.
Re: (Score:2)
If you are bitten by a dog, do you file a complaint against the dog, or against its owner
Both.
At first you call 911 or animal control's emergency numbers to report the dog bite and identify the animal, so that they can get police and responders out to seize and subdue or capture the animal. They will either exterminate the animal or take them into custody.
There is a government proceeding against the property, and the government will likely formally forfeit and euthanize the animal.
So at first your initi
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Legally, animals are property, and therefore can't be sued.
The government, state and federal, gets special permission to file suits against inanimate objects when it wants to exercise its special theft privilege, called "civil forfeiture." If the DHS decides to grab your only at the airport, for example, it legally takes the form of a suit with a title like "United States v. Two thousand Dollars."
Re: (Score:1)
When the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seizes your cash at the airport because they suspect it's related to illegal activities (like drug trafficking or money laundering), the legal action to forfeit that money is directed against the money itself. The lawsuit's title reflects this, naming the property as the defendant.
No animals are being sued in this type of case.
Re: (Score:2)
No animals are being sued in this type of case.
I don't think the airlines will allow you to put your therapy puppy in a carry-on case, anymore.
But do carry on.
Re: (Score:2)
Read my post again, focus on the word "frivolous" and have a think of precisely which party I'm calling stupid here. Hint: Not the person who lost the iPad, nor the airline.
Re: (Score:1)
It wasn't the passenger that was stupid here. It was the airline / pilot / crew, for considering the jammed iPad an emergency worth diverting the plane.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Aircraft safety is paramount, and a damaged device is a fire hazard - calling the airline stupid is the real stupidity here.
Re: (Score:2)
The device was a hazard even before it was visibly damaged, since the airline didn't check its prior history of being bent or thrown etc. it could have been in a serious state already. The only responsible thing to do is to ban all such devices from being taken on the plane by everyone, unless they can explicitly prove that their personal device is safe.
You do realize the pilots are carrying iPads in the cockpit...
Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)
Aircraft safety is paramount, yes. But that does not equate to diverting a plane because an iPad is damaged.
iPads have been known to catch fire while charging. https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/0... [1news.co.nz] Should planes be diverted if someone charges an iPad? No.
Both charging an iPad, and a damaged iPad, are potential fire hazards. But the potential is tiny. In one case, we accept the risk, even on an airplane. In the other, apparently not.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Again more bullshit from you.
Sure, devices have been known to catch fire while charging, but it's far from a normal occurrence, so you are allowed to use and charge devices in a flying aircraft.
But a damaged device is another matter entirely - stop trying to justify your own stupidity with ridiculous comparisons.
Re: (Score:1)
I provided an actual link for my statement. Do you have a source? I doubt it, I call BS.
Re: (Score:2)
Human people have also been known to spontaneously combust.
Myself, I only FLAME if I am charged up. So far.
Re: Stupid should be painful (Score:3)
https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/airline-passengers-and-batteries
There has been a rise of high profile cases involving device batteries catching fire for many reasons on an airplane.
As for your charging an i
Re: (Score:2)
The key phrase in the FAA statement is "which are likely to create sparks or generate a dangerous evolution of heat". Not all damage, even damage that deforms a device, is necessarily dangerous and likely to catch fire. Now, if the deformed device was starting to heat up, then yes, absolutely, land the plane!
Charging the power bank? That's not an iPad. I'm pretty sure the regulation doesn't prohibit charging your iPad by plugging it into the USB port on your airplane seat. Yes, power banks are dangerous and
Re: Stupid should be painful (Score:5, Insightful)
a) Land the flight (while still above land and possible airports) before the long flight over the Atlantic Ocean.
b) Keep flying and hope that it doesn't build up heat to the point of catching fire (again, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, in a 10 hour flight).
They have no way of being able to tell if the device's battery was damaged or not. They weren't even able to pull the tablet out to fully inspect it. All they could see was that it is there, and that it "already shown visible signs of deformation due to the seat's movements" So, when dealing with a possible fire outbreak, and a whole lot of questions about the device being answered with "We don't know", then yes, absolutely, land the plane.
When in a situation that could lead to a deadly event, and a whole lot of "don't know" answers to every question possible, you always err on the side of caution.
power banks (Score:2)
I heard recently that you can no longer take a power bank on board (not even in carry-on).
Those of us who carry one in our backpacks now have to remove them and do without at our destination.
Of course, I had to ditch my Swiss Army knife some years ago. Can't check it in luggage, either. (Well, you can PUT the knife in your checked luggage. But they are rather expensive to donate them to the TSA flunkie who will take it home for himself, every time you fly...)
Anyway, no more bringing juice into the cabin.
No
Re:Stupid should be painful (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not just the potential, it's the problem of containing the fire if it does happen.
First, an iPad with a visibly damaged battery is much more likely to catch fire than one that's plugged in (and this alone would be enough to divert the aeroplane, since generally the rules on such things require a plane to be landed as soon as possible for any damaged lithium cell).
Second, it's jammed in a seat. The only way to stop a lithium fire from burning the whole plane is to put it in a bucket of sand. If you can't do that, you basically gaurentee that the fire is going to spread. Once a fire starts on a plane, it takes only a few minutes before the atmosphere inside it is unbreathable, and before the pilots are unable to see the controls, let alone out the windows. From there it only takes a little while longer before control systems fail, and you have a major disaster. Fire on a plane is about the worst case scenario.
Re: (Score:2)
Lithium batteries do not create lithium fires. There is no lithium metal in a lithium battery. The stuff that can burn is the organic electrolyte.
You can stop a lithium battery from burning anything by simply setting it on a surface that won't burn in an oven. Aluminum pie plates are popular.
Airlines and regulations will probably adapt. Not putting batteries in overhead bins is sensible. Making seats so that you can't drop stuff into them and get it pinched is sensible. When incidents do occur, chucking the
Re: (Score:2)
The pilots will be able to see using the equipment they have in the cabin. (Quick-don oxygen masks and an inflatable bag you stick in between the goggles and the display screen. You'll get down OK, probably. Unless the plane burns up first.
Emergency landing in the face of the threat of any smoke or fire is prudent before going trans-oceanic.
Imagine you're driving you car and the back set catches on fire. The children are screaming and gonig crazy, of course. What would you do? Now imagine you are unable to
Re: (Score:2)
Air travel is safe because it has hard and fast standardized checklists, so airline personnel don't have to make shit up as they go along. They always follow the standard procedure.
Suppose a tablet gets jammed into a passenger seat. The procedure is that a flight attendant retrieves the device from the seat and inspects it. If it appears OK they can give it back to the passenger, but if it's damaged, say the chassis is bent, they'll put it in a special fireproof bag, and the flight continues.
What if they
Re: (Score:2)
If iPads were that dangerous... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
But as proctologists can tell you, it's hard to know what can get jammed where; one can't anticipate all angels of all devices in all plane furniture.
I suggest they have tool-kits on planes that help them quickly unjam gizmos.
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
Airlines are going to have a procedure to deal with a lithium fire in-flight. If a device is potentially damaged and inaccessible, those procedures might not apply. When you're 10km in the air, bet safe than sorry.
Re: (Score:3)
Airlines are going to have a procedure to deal with a lithium fire in-flight. If a device is potentially damaged and inaccessible, those procedures might not apply. When you're 10km in the air, bet safe than sorry.
Standard airline procedure is to carry special insulated bags on flights. If some passenger's device overheats, usually a power bank, it is dumped into the bag and sealed off. The problem on this flight is that the device was inaccessible when stuck inside the seat.
Re:If iPads were that dangerous... (Score:4, Informative)
It's not the iPad. It's the fact the iPad got jammed in the seat and was being crushed by it. By the time it was retrieved it was visibly deformed by operating the seat so puncturing the battery is a real concern.
The problem was the iPad got jammed in the seat mechanism.
Depending on the charge level of the device - the deformed battery could be a nothingburger or a spicy one. (They catch fire because they internally short out. If there is enough charge that is. If they're discharged then there's no energy to cause problems. It's why devices are often shipped with a 40% charge - it's enough for testing, but too low to cause any problems during shipping. There's just not enough energy in the battery at that point to catch fire.
Re: If iPads were that dangerous... (Score:3)
"Damaged or recalled batteries and battery-powered devices, which are likely to create sparks or generate a dangerous evolution of heat, must not be carried aboard an aircraft "
https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/airline-passengers-and-batteries
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think it was ever about the real danger posed. You could take up to 1 litre of liquid on board, it just had to be in 10 x 100ml bottles.
I don't think you could make a very effective bomb out of an iPad. There isn't much room in there for the explosive, and the shape doesn't lend itself to directing the blast to cause maximum damage. It has to get through the x-ray machine as well.
Re: (Score:2)
Things that are not a security risk that are nonetheless banned on flights are under the purview of the FAA, not the TSA.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Go poke a charged but not-currently-charging not-connected-to-anything-at-all lithium battery with a pin, see how that goes
I've done it several times now to swollen cells with very little reaction. They swole while charging. I've tried it both with and without water, too. One small pouch cell I left outside in a concrete sink took almost a year to then go on to swell up to about 2.5 times its original size with being occasionally rained on, and living outside in a semi-marine environment.
With that said, I still think we should ban NCM cells entirely. LFPs cost slightly more and store slightly less, but are far less hazardous to
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You are the idiot here.
Battery fires do not require the device to be charging, and the summary notes that the device was already showing deformations caused by operation of the seat, so the integrity of the battery was a real concern.
Diverting the aircraft was a sound decision based on safety.
Fuck people like you.
Re:HEADLINE IS WRONG. So was the pilot (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure why you think it has to be charging to have thermal runaway. You can find plenty of videos [youtube.com] of lithium/etc batteries having thermal runaway without being actively charging. All it takes is a charged battery and physical damage.
Whether this particular case was warranted or not I can't answer, but it does say it had shown signs of deformation from the seat moving around.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it is widely known that the FAA is pretty bad at thrir job - they suck at oversight, enforcing rules and standard language. They also give a CPL to basically anyone.
And a lithium battery can start burning when damaged even if it is outside a device and not connected to anything. Happened to me a couple of times, was scary shit.
Re: (Score:2)
OMFG ae people so stupid now.
The most stupid among them is those who capitalise their ignorance for all to see. If I were as wrong as you are here I wouldn't be shouting it. No Lithium batteries do not need to be charging to combust.
Disgusting
Only if you don't learn from the replies posted here.
Re: (Score:3)
Wow, this is an interesting weird belief that seems to permiate this thread. Go and poke a hole in a lithium battery with a nail, and see what hapens. Hint - if you expose lithium metal to water in the air, BAD things happen very very quickly.
Re: (Score:2)
In this same post, you can observe the phrase "multi-million" employed as a way to wave away safety concerns. The symptoms point to Stockton Rush Syndrome, co-mobid with Dunnig-Kreuger.
I think the origin for the belief about the batteries is that consumers hear a lot about "Charging degrades batteries", which is true, and they take that to mean charging is the only way to damage a battery.
Re: (Score:2)
This is also a weird belief that seems to permiate not just this thread. There's no lithium metal in a lithium battery. The thing that burns is the electrolyte, ignited by high temperatures caused by a short circuit. The electrolyte is an organic solvent so if you do manage to get a battery to catch on fire it's more like a cooking oil fire in your kitchen than the YouTube videos of yahoos throwing chunks rare earth metals in ponds.
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, this is an interesting weird belief that seems to permiate this thread.
This isn't permeating the thread. It's the same idiot repeating his ignorance over and over again. Twice as an OP in fact. It's like he wants the world to know how wrong he is. Poor guy needs some mental help.
Not true, but wouldn't surprise me if ... (Score:2)
Someone wanted to fly from LA to Boston, but discovered that a plane ticket from LA to Munich was cheaper, even counting the price of trashing the tablet. /s
Re: (Score:2)
You're seriously deep into some insanely stupid conspiracy level shit there buddy. You think a business class passenger gives a flying fuck about ticket price to the point of *checks notes* trashing an iPad, and having to get on a plane and do the airport thing TWICE?
What else do you think people do? Visit the dentist for a root canal just for fun?
Going out on a limb ... (Score:2)
This is simply next-level Skiplagging. :-)
HCF (Score:5, Funny)
Opcode: HCF
"Halt and Catch Fire"
Processor halts and catches fire.
If bit 57 (DZO) of the Machine Status Word
is set before the HCF instruction is executed
an attempt will be made to explode.
Correct decision (Score:2)
Obviously, the designers of that seat should be fired...
Risk with fire extinguisher (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Halon extinguishers (the ones carried on planes) are only suitable for class-B and class-C fires. Lithium battery fires fall into their own category and require a special extinguisher which is not standard on any aircraft.
What is standard on aircraft are thermal fire containment bags. But to use those you need to have access to a device, which is precisely why airlines require you to keep lithium batteries in your hand luggage in the cabin and not in your checked luggage. Obviously that won't work if your d
maybe not so dumb (Score:1)
Obviously, improve training, provide in-air extinguisher, etc. Smart airlines are already looking at this and working on a solution. Sucks for those passengers but they will have a story to tell.
Something Similar Just Happened! (Score:2)
I kid you not, I'm writing this from 35000 on a United flight. We were all seated with bags stowed in the overheads, and the crew then told us get the eff off the plane. Apparently, some idiot lost his mobile phone on the plane during the previous flight, and it managed to fall between some of the plastic interior panels. We were all forced to leave the plane so they could tear the interior apart to get to the phone. They did finally find it, and we were allowed to get back in the plane and in the air a
Fire safe. (Score:2)
It's possible to make safe Li-ion batteries (Score:1)
The crazy thing here is that it's perfectly possible to make Li-ion batteries that do not burst into flame when damaged. Few people do it because Li-ion batteries are often treated as a commodity and bought from the lowest bidder, not necessarily the safest battery. There needs to be standards for Li-ion batteries to withstand physical damage, and device makers should require these safety standards.
As an example, see this video showing cells being punctured without bursting into flames:
https://www.youtube.c [youtube.com]