Phillip J fry
Well-Known Member
The current USA Administration have notified airlines operating from 8 Middle East Countries, including Airlines in the United Arab Emirates flying out of Dubai or airlines flying out of Istanbul, that laptops, tablets, cameras and other electronic devices are no longer permitted in the passenger cabin and must be carried in the cargo hold instead. The Administration reasoned: "Evaluated intelligence indicates that terrorist groups continue to target commercial aviation, to include smuggling explosive devices in various consumer items."
ICAO had, following at least two crashes of Boeing 747-400s, that were attributed to fires resulting from Lithium batteries (see Crash: Asiana B744 near Jeju on Jul 28th 2011, fire in cargo hold and Crash: UPS B744 at Dubai on Sep 3rd 2010, cargo fire) as well as a number of inflight fires caused by Lithium batteries which could be controlled by cabin crew immediately extinguishing such fires and cooling such batteries down, recommended, that no Lithium batteries are carried in cargo holds of passenger aircraft and Lithium batteries can be carried on cargo aircraft if not charged above 30%.
Lithium batteries powering laptops, tablets, cameras, smartphones etc., were therefore recommended on passenger flights only and only in passenger cabins for safety reasons due to the availability of trained cabin crew to immediately take correct actions to extinguish such fires and prevent further thermal runaway.
The administrative order handed to Middle East based airlines on Tuesday (Mar 21st 2017) at 03:00AM Eastern Standard Time (07:00Z) with the instruction to comply with this order within 96 hours requires however, that such electronic devices have to be put into cargo holds out of reach of human intervention on flights originating from 8 Middle East countries to prevent a terror attack hinted by US intelligence.
Airlines known to be directly affected so far include:
Royal Jordanian
Egypt Air
Turkish Airlines
Saudi Arabian Airlines
Kuwait Airways
Royal Air Maroc
Qatar Airways
Emirates
Etihad Airways
Airports known to be affected so far include:
Amman, Jordan
Cairo, Egypt
Istanbul, Turkey
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Kuwait, Kuwait
Casablanca, Morocco
Doha, Qatar
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Later the day the United Kingdom have also issued an order that electronic devices larger than regular smartphones (e.g. laptops, tablets, ...) on flights from six countries to the UK need to be checked in (and be put into the cargo holds). The countries are: Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Turkey.
This order thus puts all flights out of those countries/airports destined for the USA or UK at substantial risk of an inflight cargo fire in case of a thermal runaway of Lithium batteries assembled into such devices, that can no longer be contained due to lack of inflight access to cargo holds. At the same time this order does not reduce/mitigate any risk of such an explosive device detonate in flight by various means like time or barometric detonator, remote control or others - but again lack of inflight access to the cargo hold to contain the consequences of such an event could prevent a safe outcome like it happened in February 2016, see Accident: Daallo A321 near Mogadishu on Feb 2nd 2016, explosion rips fuselage open.
On Dec 21st 1988 a bomb downed Pan Am Flight 103, the Boeing 747-100 registration N739PA fell to ground in the Scottish village of Lockerbie (UK). The bomb had been hidden in a radio-cassette player stowed in the forward cargo hold.
While ICAO in their document DGP-WG/16-WP/1 does not specifically prohibit personal electronic devices, in particular medical devices, to be put into checked luggage (cargo holds), the ICAO clearly recommends that any electronic devices (the batteries of which do not exceed 2g of Lithium metal in Lithium Metal batteries or do not exceed the capacity of 100Wh on Lithium Ion batteries):
- carried by passengers or crew for personal use;
- should be carried as carry-on baggage;
- if devices are carried in checked baggage, measures must be taken to prevent unintentional activation;
- batteries and cells must be of a type which meets the requirements of each test in the UN Manual of Tests and Criteria, Part III, subsection 38.3.
Works on these recommendations are still ongoing within the ICAO work group.
http://www.avherald.com/h?article=4a67fce7&opt=0
Robert
ICAO had, following at least two crashes of Boeing 747-400s, that were attributed to fires resulting from Lithium batteries (see Crash: Asiana B744 near Jeju on Jul 28th 2011, fire in cargo hold and Crash: UPS B744 at Dubai on Sep 3rd 2010, cargo fire) as well as a number of inflight fires caused by Lithium batteries which could be controlled by cabin crew immediately extinguishing such fires and cooling such batteries down, recommended, that no Lithium batteries are carried in cargo holds of passenger aircraft and Lithium batteries can be carried on cargo aircraft if not charged above 30%.
Lithium batteries powering laptops, tablets, cameras, smartphones etc., were therefore recommended on passenger flights only and only in passenger cabins for safety reasons due to the availability of trained cabin crew to immediately take correct actions to extinguish such fires and prevent further thermal runaway.
The administrative order handed to Middle East based airlines on Tuesday (Mar 21st 2017) at 03:00AM Eastern Standard Time (07:00Z) with the instruction to comply with this order within 96 hours requires however, that such electronic devices have to be put into cargo holds out of reach of human intervention on flights originating from 8 Middle East countries to prevent a terror attack hinted by US intelligence.
Airlines known to be directly affected so far include:
Royal Jordanian
Egypt Air
Turkish Airlines
Saudi Arabian Airlines
Kuwait Airways
Royal Air Maroc
Qatar Airways
Emirates
Etihad Airways
Airports known to be affected so far include:
Amman, Jordan
Cairo, Egypt
Istanbul, Turkey
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Kuwait, Kuwait
Casablanca, Morocco
Doha, Qatar
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Later the day the United Kingdom have also issued an order that electronic devices larger than regular smartphones (e.g. laptops, tablets, ...) on flights from six countries to the UK need to be checked in (and be put into the cargo holds). The countries are: Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Turkey.
This order thus puts all flights out of those countries/airports destined for the USA or UK at substantial risk of an inflight cargo fire in case of a thermal runaway of Lithium batteries assembled into such devices, that can no longer be contained due to lack of inflight access to cargo holds. At the same time this order does not reduce/mitigate any risk of such an explosive device detonate in flight by various means like time or barometric detonator, remote control or others - but again lack of inflight access to the cargo hold to contain the consequences of such an event could prevent a safe outcome like it happened in February 2016, see Accident: Daallo A321 near Mogadishu on Feb 2nd 2016, explosion rips fuselage open.
On Dec 21st 1988 a bomb downed Pan Am Flight 103, the Boeing 747-100 registration N739PA fell to ground in the Scottish village of Lockerbie (UK). The bomb had been hidden in a radio-cassette player stowed in the forward cargo hold.
While ICAO in their document DGP-WG/16-WP/1 does not specifically prohibit personal electronic devices, in particular medical devices, to be put into checked luggage (cargo holds), the ICAO clearly recommends that any electronic devices (the batteries of which do not exceed 2g of Lithium metal in Lithium Metal batteries or do not exceed the capacity of 100Wh on Lithium Ion batteries):
- carried by passengers or crew for personal use;
- should be carried as carry-on baggage;
- if devices are carried in checked baggage, measures must be taken to prevent unintentional activation;
- batteries and cells must be of a type which meets the requirements of each test in the UN Manual of Tests and Criteria, Part III, subsection 38.3.
Works on these recommendations are still ongoing within the ICAO work group.
http://www.avherald.com/h?article=4a67fce7&opt=0
Robert