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Should airplanes forbid PC laptops?

It’s more serious than laptops committing suicide in bags. It’s, anything with a high-energy battery can short itself and cause a fire. Worse, it could be malware or hardware. At this point I am surprised the vulnerability hasn’t been used by anyone.



Airplanes have bags/boxes to throw li-ion batteries into and extinguish any particular fire.

The law is that you can only bring aboard Li-ion batteries of size 100 watt-hrs or smaller on any airplane (https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/whatcanibring/...).

I think the airline crews are confident they can handle 100 watt-hours worth of burning, but no more than that!


You can't extinguish a lithium ion battery fire by smothering it. The fire creates its own oxygen. You can contain the fire, and you can immerse it in enough water that it cools below the burning temperature and shorts out through the water.


https://youtu.be/oa_yao1DC1U

https://youtu.be/LCFsmHLDuyg

I'm not sure if they are smothering the fire. The strategy seems like it's just a safe place to keep the fire until later.

You won't have buckets and buckets of water on an airplane. You need a solution to safely contain the fire and keep the passengers safe.




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