Dukes of hazard
“The quiet hum of the flight was suddenly pierced by panicked screams, a few passengers jumped out of their seats, and second later, an explosion created a ball of fire on a window seat tray table.” This was the experience of Computer Weekly deputy production editor, Ryan Priest, on a recent flight, after a passenger’s battery pack caught fire.
“I recall someone grabbing either a blanket or pillow and putting it out within seconds, but I had the impression the fire could have spread fast and aggressively without that quick action,” he says.
Smoke had filled the cabin and the cabin crew demanded that everyone clear the aisles so they could assess the incident.
This is not a one-off.
In 2025, the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) said that from the start of the year to the end of June 2025, it had verified 38 lithium battery incidents on passenger and cargo aircraft.
According to the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), passengers carry four to five devices when travelling on aircraft which it said: “represents a significant exposure to the risk of a thermal runaway during flight”.
Thermal runaway is a result of something going wrong in a cell in the battery pack, causing a chain reaction in the battery’s chemistry, It is often linked to low quality assurance in manufacturing and cheap electronics – particularly the battery management circuits that are supposed to manage charging to prevent overheating.
Battery packs seem to be everywhere. Smartphone and laptop users often find a charge doesn’t provide much work time and when there’s no wall socket to use for charging, they need to resort to a powerbank to top up the charge. The 26-year-old Nokia 3310, which was relaunched in 2017, had a reported battery life of 22 hours of talk time. Today we’re lucky to get away with a few hours of actual usage on a modern smartphone.
The problem is that since access to electrical power is the limiting factor in our increasingly lithium-battery fueled lives, without which we are denied access to social media, the internet and the essential apps we use everyday, there’s a boom in demand for powrebanks. An Alibaba search will bring up manufacturers selling 10,000 mAh powerbanks in bulk for a few pounds. It’s no wonder trade shows are full of these “freebies” sporting a company logo.
Nobody wants to be the duke whose logo is linked to a powerbank fire. Battery management and chemistry needs to be certified as safe for flight. Electronic device manufacturers that use rechargeable batteries also have a role to play. We should demand these products are over-engineered to avoid any risk of thermal runaway.