Laptop batteries on planes are an accident waiting to happen
Terror without terrorists
By Paul Hales: Monday 14 August 2006, 14:54
WHILE THE POTENTIAL dangers of lithium ion batteries have long been known, it seems it took the INQUIRER'S publication of those shocking photos of Dell's famously exploding laptop for something to be done about the issue.
As we noted before, the possible dangers of laptop computers bursting into flames on an aircraft in the middle of the Atlantic need to be taken into account, as facts hitherto fore buried in bureaucracy begin to demonstrate.
As the Wall Street Journal notes today, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission now admits documentation on 339 cases of lithium and lithium-ion batteries in portable gizmos, "overheating, emitting smoke and fumes or exploding since 2003."
Of perhaps more concern is that fact the Federal Aviation Administration has logged 60 such incidents in aircraft or airports since 1991.
During the past two years, six incidents have occurred on aircraft, including five fires plus a overheating torch that "had to be handled with oven mitts".
The WSJ notes the case of Lufthansa Flight 435 which on May 15 was sat at Chicago O'Hare International Airport preparing for a nine-hour flight to Munich, when, according to witnesses, smoke began to float from the luggage bin above seat 2A.
A smoking case was tossed out of the plane before erupting into flames. Inside, investigators discovered a "charred laptop computer and a six-pack of melted lithium-ion batteries," the Journal notes
The owner of the laptop confessed to having bought non-standard batteries on eBay.
After a number of scares involving non-rechargable lithium batteries, these were banned from flights by the FAA in 2004.
Other incidents that involve rechargeable lithium-ion batteries now most commonly used in laptops have, um, sparked an investigation into their safety, or lack of such. The investigation is on-going.
So far, manufacturers have recalled more than two million rechargeable batteries for mobile phones, laptops, portable DVD players and digital cameras, etc., since 2003. These include a total of 300,700 laptop batteries recalled since May 2005.
In a bid to allay these fears and others, Dell's upcoming announcement of a battery recall could run into many millions of battery units, we understand. µ
Dell recalls 4.1m 'Zippo' laptop batteries
By Ashlee Vance in Mountain View
14th August 2006 23:25 GMT
Security White Papers - Download them free from Reg Research Dell's customer satisfaction flameout has started to reach record levels. The company today issued a recall for 4.1m laptop batteries out of fear that they could catch fire. The product recall stands as the largest ever for the US consumer electronics industry.
Over the past two months, numerous stories have appeared documenting Dell laptops' habit of igniting. You've got Dell laptop goes up in smoke, Dell probes incendiary laptop incident, Dell laptop smoked in Singapore and Dell said to have 'dozens' of burned laptop incidents on file. Such treasures build on the Nov. 2002 classic - Man burns penis with laptop.
Fire-breathing laptops are the last thing you want when you're a company spending hundreds of millions of dollars to repair a fractured relationship with consumers. And, for awhile, Dell tried to distance itself from the flametop episodes by saying it was investigating the allegations to see if counterfeit batteries or some other junky third-party component wasn't too blame.
Dell has since given up on the "Floyd Landis Defense." The company has teamed with the US Consumer Products Safety Commission to recall laptop batteries sold between April 2004 and July 18, 2006. The recall stretches right across the Latitude, Inspiron and Precision lines.
Dell has fingered faulty Sony manufactured lithium-ion batteries for causing laptops to light up in "rare" cases. The more than 4m systems account for a whopping 18 per cent of notebooks Dell sold over the past two years.
Consumers should soon be able to see if their system is involved in the recall by going to this site, although the site has yet to go live at the time of publication. The web site will provide information on how to get a free replacement battery.
Dell has spent mounds of cash over the past year trying to improve its customer service. The vendor has hired more customer service representatives, lowered the prices of its gear and cutback the number of odd promotions it throws at consumers. It hopes these measures will, er, warm the public to the Dell brand again. Dell has suffered from an uncharacteristic, sustained sales slump. ®