Lithium Batteries in luggage

[Topspin]

I write this as somebody who works in the industry, but no longer directly around airlines or aircraft. Please excuse my lack of knowledge, if this has been beaten to death before...

We had a Lithium Polymer battery fire in the baggage make-up area yesterday afternoon. Was about 60 minutes away from the pit on a US carrier. I use these things to fly model helicopters, always new they were nasty, but my first live experience really seeing the effects.

Sample fire.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCWdnjLqVWw
Seen an RC flyer that lost his entire house this way, batteries are usually charged in Kevlar fire-resistant sack if not something better, and unattended charging is a cardinal sin. However they can still burn from improper care, overvoltage or physical damage.

Appears extraordinarily lucky, that this happened in the bagroom as opposed to on board or worse, in the air. Just reading up to try and get a handle on how bad it could be:

A) Initial fire. It's my understanding that the bottles on board use Halon agents, which are not effective at extinguishing Lithium based fires.

B) Secondary fire. Temperatures can be over 1000c in the initial burn, plenty of luggage to light on fire down there.

C) Fumes. Fumes are both toxic & corrosive. It's my understanding that cargo pit air comes from the cabin, and is to some extent recirculated back to the cabin on most types?

Looks like an absolute nightmare to have while airborne, now I wonder if the information regarding Fire Fighting Agent & such is accurate?
Hard shell type Lithium batteries like those in Laptops are a good deal less volatile, but under the right conditions seemingly just as dangerous?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG_UuPmLO1c

Something commercial flyers are concerned about with the explosion of lithium batteries into the marketplace? Something that's already been discussed to the end of time?

Curious. Cheers.

[JohnnyHotRocks]

Here's a good training video on dealing with this type of fire....would be very difficult to deal with if it was in the cargo section!
http://www.bangaloreaviation.com/2009/0 ... puter.html
Appendix C of the IATA dangerous goods manual states that spare lithium batteries are forbidden in checked baggage, but devices containing batteries (laptops, cameras, etc) are allowed back there....I guess the likelyhood of a fire is much higher when the battery is charging, in use, or has the potential to short out (ie a battery thrown in your luggage with no protection from shorting out the leads)
How many travellers know that these batteries aren't allowed in checked bags....probably not many!

[ArcticKat]

I thought that batteries were allowed, but just not installed in their respective devices.

[JohnnyHotRocks]

http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/cargo/dang ... ble23A.pdf

[North Shore]

Here's a good training video on dealing with this type of fire....would be very difficult to deal with if it was in the cargo section!
http://www.bangaloreaviation.com/2009/0 ... puter.html
Appendix C of the IATA dangerous goods manual states that spare lithium batteries are forbidden in checked baggage, but devices containing batteries (laptops, cameras, etc) are allowed back there....I guess the likelyhood of a fire is much higher when the battery is charging, in use, or has the potential to short out (ie a battery thrown in your luggage with no protection from shorting out the leads)
How many travellers know that these batteries aren't allowed in checked bags....probably not many!

But I'm sure that everybody knows that we can't take 100ml+ of water on board

[CD]

SAFO 09013 - Fighting Fires Caused By Lithium Type Batteries in Portable Electronic Devices

[ArcticKat]

http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/cargo/dang ... ble23A.pdf

That is excellent information. I thought the batteries were permitted in checked baggage because the security check opened up my bag and disconnected all the batteries from the devices, then put them back into my checked baggage.

[Topspin]

SAFO 09013 - Fighting Fires Caused By Lithium Type Batteries in Portable Electronic Devices

Direct contradiction:

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=we ... RQ&cad=rja

Halon 1301 Suppression results:
-Alcohol fire immediately extinguished
-Battery fires continued to propagate until all batteries were consumed

Halon 1301 Suppression conclusions:
-1301 has no effect on the intensity and propagation of the lithium battery fire

Conclusions:
-Halon 1301 chemically interacts with the burning lithium and electrolyte-with no effect on fire intensity
-Cargo liner is vulnerable to penetration by molten lithium

Interested in the background of the quoted document. Not trying to be an expert, my interest is in my personal use of even more volatile type of Lithium batteries.

[ahramin]

That document relates to cargo compartment fire suppression systems. These systems are designed for both initial and long term fire suppression and have much lower Halon concentrations per volume than spraying something directly with an extinguisher.

If you have a burning laptop battery, a Halon fire extinguisher will put out the fire but will not stop the thermal runaway condition so you need to cool them down somehow. Water is best.

[CID]

Other relevant information:

http://www.ups.com/media/en/iata_lithium_guidance.pdf

http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/te ... ain_02.tpl

(See 173.185)

Lithium-ion batteries won't likely cause problems if they are not connected to a potential load. Unfortunately many compuyter battery packs are made using Li-ion cells and on board charging electronics that increase the chance of spontaneous short circuits and fires.

It's just a very bad idea to stuff them in to the baggage compartment. If they are involved in a fire above deck, size matters. The smaller the cell the sooner it will consume itself. Cool if off in water if possible and use Halon fire extinguishers to put out the fire on surrounding material keeping in mind you will not extinguish the actual battery fire. Hopefully you won't run out of Halon before the Li-ion battery is completely consumed.

[CD]

Interested in the background of the quoted document. Not trying to be an expert, my interest is in my personal use of even more volatile type of Lithium batteries.

The background for both documents is the work that has been undertaken by the FAA Technical Center in Atlantic City. They have quite the facility there for conducting fire research and lots of published material is available. If you ever have the opportunity to be involved with any of the research they are conducting, I recommend taking advantage of the chance.

Cabin Safety Research Technical Group
Materials Fire Test Working Group
International Aircraft Systems Fire Protection Working Group
Fire Research
Cabin & Fire Safety Reports Search
Aircraft Materials Fire Test Handbook

As I recall, there have been a number of research papers presented at the International Fire & Cabin Safety Research Conferences that may also be interesting for you. All of the procedings from the conferences are available here:
International Fire & Cabin Safety Research Conference

[Beefitarian]

I guess the likelyhood of a fire is much higher when the battery is charging, in use, or has the potential to short out (ie a battery thrown in your luggage with no protection from shorting out the leads)
How many travellers know that these batteries aren't allowed in checked bags....probably not many!

But I'm sure that everybody knows that we can't take 100ml+ of water on board

This seems to be a problem to me.