Agency bans lithium batteries on passenger jets
Print Edition
SHIPMENTS of rechargeable lithium batteries, which are used in countless consumer products, should not be allowed on passenger planes because they can create intense fires capable of destroying an aircraft, a UN aviation agency has concluded.
The decision by the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization’s top-level governing council to ban the shipments isn’t binding, but most countries follow the agency’s standards. The ban comes into effect on April 1.
“This interim prohibition will continue to be in force as separate work continues through ICAO on a new lithium battery packaging performance standard, currently expected by 2018,” said Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu, the ICAO council’s president.
Namrata Kolachalam, a US transport department spokeswoman, called the ban “a necessary action to protect passengers, crews, and aircraft from the current risk to aviation safety.”
The ICAO decision frees the department to begin work on regulations to impose a ban. Airlines flying to and from the US that accept lithium battery shipments carry 26 million passengers a year, the Federal Aviation Administration estimates.
A law passed by Congress in 2012 at the behest of industry prohibits the transport department from issuing any regulations regarding air shipments of lithium batteries that are more stringent than ICAO standards unless there is a crash that can be shown to have been started by batteries. Since most evidence in crashes is destroyed by fire, that’s virtually impossible to do, critics of the provision say.
Florida representative John Mica, who wrote the provision, has said that since batteries are an international industry there should be a single, international standard.
Lithium-ion batteries are used in products from cellphones and laptops to some electric cars. About 5.4 billion lithium-ion cells were manufactured worldwide in 2014. A battery has two or more cells. A majority of batteries are transported by sea, but about 30 percent are shipped by air.
PRBA, the Rechargeable Battery Association, which opposed the ban, said in a statement that the industry is preparing to comply with the ban, but there may be “significant disruption in the logistics supply chain.”
Aviation authorities have long known that the batteries can self-ignite, creating fires hotter than 1,100 degrees. That’s near the melting point of the aluminum used in aircraft construction.
Safety concerns increased after FAA tests showed gases emitted by overheated batteries can build up in cargo containers, leading to explosions capable of disabling aircraft fire suppression systems.
As a result of the tests, an organization representing aircraft manufacturers — including the world’s two largest, Boeing and Airbus — said last year that airliners aren’t designed to withstand lithium battery fires and that continuing to accept battery shipments is “an unacceptable risk.”
Since 2006, three cargo jets have been destroyed and four pilots killed in in-flight fires investigators say where either started by batteries or made more severe by their proximity.
The International Federation of Air Line Pilots Associations lobbied the ICAO council unsuccessfully to extend the ban to cargo carriers.
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