[Peetwo]

Case of the exploding headsets? -

To be fair to the bureau they were quick to get out the following presser on a matter where they lack jurisdictional (ICAO Annex 13) rights to investigate (correction - " they were slow to get out the presser - waiting nearly a month... " - WTD?):

Battery explosion mid-flight prompts passenger warning
As the range of products using batteries grows, the potential for in-flight issues increases.


On a recent flight from Beijing to Melbourne, a passenger was listening to music using a pair of her own battery-operated headphones.

About two hours into the flight while sleeping, the passenger heard a loud explosion. “As I went to turn around I felt burning on my face,” she said. “I just grabbed my face which caused the headphones to go around my neck.

“I continued to feel burning so I grabbed them off and threw them on the floor. They were sparking and had small amounts of fire.

“As I went to stamp my foot on them the flight attendants were already there with a bucket of water to pour on them. They put them into the bucket at the rear of the plane.” The battery and cover were both melted and stuck to the floor of the aircraft.

Flight attendants returned to check on her wellbeing. For the remainder of the flight, passengers endured the smell of melted plastic, burnt electronics and burnt hair. “People were coughing and choking the entire way home,” the passenger said.

The ATSB assessed that the batteries in the device likely caught on fire. The ATSB reminds passengers using battery-powered devices that:

• batteries should be kept in an approved stowage, unless in use
  
• spare batteries must be in your carry-on baggage NOT checked baggage
  
• if a passenger’s smart phone or other device has fallen into the seat gap, locate their device before moving powered seats
  
• if a passenger cannot locate their device, they should refrain from moving their seat and immediately contact a cabin crew member.
  

More information about Travelling safely with batteries and portable power packs.
Other ATSB news stories and investigation reports about lithium ion batteries:

• Aviation incident sparks lithium battery warning
  
• Personal electronic device fire in-flight involving Boeing 747
  
• Crew’s prompt in-flight response to smoking device.
  

 
 
 


Last update 15 March 2017
 

 
Bit hard to workout how any of the safety risk mitigation bullet-points could have helped to prevent this incident but I guess the ATSB is caught between a rock and a hard place with very little to go on. Maybe in this case the responsible authority (representative State AAI) may end up delegating this investigation to the ATSB...

The following article from tech savvy EFTM online, perhaps highlights some of the absurdities of a potentially serious international inflight incident, with cross-jurisdictional issues and a commercially neutered, politically correct, obviously non-independent State AAI:

Case Closed: Battery explosion mid-flight and we’re not going to know what brand

ATSB not investigating - CASA has no information to inform Australian passengers
by Trevor Long March 15, 2017

Get this.  Despite a woman receiving injuries from an exploding battery while wearing headphones on-board a flight to Melbourne, we’re not going to know what brand of battery or headphones she was using because it didn’t happen in Australian airspace
EFTM has spoken to representatives from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau who have confirmed the incident occurred on a flight from Beijing to Melbourne – and specifically happened around two hours into the flight.

Why this matters?  Because that puts the plane over Chinese airspace, or at the very least not in Australian airspace.  Additionally, the flight was not an Australian airline, so the ATSB is not obligated and may not even have the authority to investigate such an incident on a Chinese airline.



I also spoke with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority who would normally put out warnings to passengers about issues such as the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 dramas late last year.

Because there has not been (and will not be) an ATSB investigation they have nothing to report on.

The passenger reported that she had been listening to music on her battery operated headphones.  Two hours into the flight she heard a loud explosion. “As I went to turn around I felt burning on my face,” she said. “I just grabbed my face which caused the headphones to go around my neck.

“I continued to feel burning so I grabbed them off and threw them on the floor. They were sparking and had small amounts of fire.

“As I went to stamp my foot on them the flight attendants were already there with a bucket of water to pour on them. They put them into the bucket at the rear of the plane.”


The ATSB notification reports that the battery and cover were both melted and stuck to the floor of the aircraft.

All we know formally is that the ATSB assessed that the batteries in the device likely caught on fire, and have issued a reminder that passengers using battery-powered devices:

• batteries should be kept in an approved stowage, unless in use
  
• spare batteries must be in your carry-on baggage NOT checked baggage
  
• if a passenger’s smart phone or other device has fallen into the seat gap, locate their device before moving powered seats
  
• if a passenger cannot locate their device, they should refrain from moving their seat and immediately contact a cabin crew member.
  

Frankly, none of that is satisfactory.

The brand of headphones has not been reported, that is because it is not the headphones which were deemed to be at fault.  The headphones were a brand that allows external batteries (AA for example) to be inserted – thus, it was those batteries at fault.

However, at the same time, the brand of batteries is also not being reported.

Surely for a battery to explode and or catch fire is a serious enough incident for passengers to be given more comprehensive warnings.

There are so many possibilities:

• The batteries were faulty
  
• The batteries were low grade
  
• The batteries were damaged before use
  
• The headphones were faulty
  
• The headphones were damaged before use
  
• The passenger sat in such a way which caused the batteries to react this way.
  

Mostly far-fetched, but if we have another incident – who’s to blame?
Seems like we deserve to know a bit more.  What do you think?

&..via the Oz:

Headphones explode mid-flight

3:48pmChris Griffith

Woman suffers dramatic injuries as she was listening to music on board a flight from Beijing to Sydney.

The issue of exploding batteries on an aircraft has played out dramatically with a woman suffering facial injuries when her headphones exploded on a flight from Beijing to Melbourne.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has revealed that the passenger was listening to music with her battery-powered headphones when the explosion took place on the flight on February 19.

It occurred about two hours into the flight while the woman was sleeping. “As I went to turn around I felt burning on my face,” she said in a statement provided by the bureau.


The female airline passenger says she felt burning to her face as she listened to music on her headphones.

“I just grabbed my face which caused the headphones to go around my neck. I continued to feel burning so I grabbed them off and threw them on the floor. They were sparking and had small amounts of fire.”

She said aircraft staff reacted quickly to the incident. “As I went to stamp my foot on them the flight attendants were already there with a bucket of water to pour on them.


The exploding headphones left burns in the victim's hands.

“They put them into the bucket at the rear of the plane.”

The battery and cover were both melted and stuck to the floor of the aircraft.

For the remainder of the flight, passengers endured the smell of melted plastic, burnt electronics and burnt hair, the bureau said in a statement.

“People were coughing and choking the entire way home,” the passenger said.

The bureau said it had assessed that the batteries in the device likely caught on fire. It said batteries should be kept in stowage unless in use, and must be in carry-on baggage, not checked baggage.

The ATSB says the incident wasn’t deemed investigable and hence there is no follow-up with the manufacturer.

We asked the bureau if there was any issue about others taking the same branded headphone on flights. A spokesman said this wasn’t a problem.

He refused to reveal the brand of headphones and that of the battery. And he did not provide the name of the airline.

The bureau didn’t want to release the details because it didn’t want them to overshadow its main concern, namely the safety message about carrying batteries on aircraft.
He said the woman had complied with aircraft battery regulations.

"..ATSB not investigating - CASA has no information to inform Australian passengers.."  - Not a good by-line...


MTF...P2