Battery fire in the cockpit (a hypothetical)

labbadabba

labbadabba

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So, I have a portable ADS-B receiver with a typical USB battery pack. I've not heard of any issues with this particular battery catching fire, but I do know it does happen. The other day, the battery felt hot to the touch, like uncomfortably hot.

It got me thinking.

What happens if that thing lights up in flight? Will a fire extinguisher put it out? Would I be able to pick it up and toss it out the window? If I tossed a flaming battery out the window, would the FAA get angry or would they rather me burn up in mid-air and auger the whole plane in?

I guess this is another plus in the column for old paper E6B & Sectional crowd...
 

That is not something I'd wanna pick up. Looks like the event only lasts a few seconds, but it's an energetic few seconds and it's going to set other stuff on fire, probably.
 
If something is burning and I can throw it out the window I'm throwing it out the window. If the FAA or whoever else wants to complain I was handling an emergency.
 
I had the stratux & battery in the back seat until the trip to Wyoming for the eclipse. There was so much gear in the back seat that I was afraid the stratux which is velcro'd to the window, would be knocked off and/or the cable to the battery dislodged. The stratux is now velcro'd to the window post next to me, and the battery is in the sidewall pocket. If anything becomes a problem, it's trivial to toss the battery out the little window or reach next to me for the fire extinguisher.
 
I dunno about the whole 'tossing the battery' scenarios. Watch a few videos... the first notice you might get from it being in the sidewall pocket is your calf and pants catching on fire.

I agree the extinguisher will put out what's left, but... man...
 
Hopefully you'd notice the smoke and the plastic housing would slow things down long enough to toss it out the window. Probably all comes down to how severely the battery goes... usually they only smoke a lot. The catastrophic flame up is pretty rare, otherwise you'd have a ton of people setting their pants on fire with cell phones.

When you see those videos someone is intentionally dumping a lot of extra power into the battery with all the safeties removed and no housing around it.
 
I get your point, but that video I posted is just a short circuit. No extra energy added.

Fortunately, lithium batteries appear to be (relatively) safe when operated as intended. It appears to take something unusual (short, over charge, mechanical damage) to make one burn.

OTOH, it'd suck to survive the off airport landing only to have the battery pack set the plane on fire.
 
labbadabba said:
So, I have a portable ADS-B receiver with a typical USB battery pack. I've not heard of any issues with this particular battery catching fire, but I do know it does happen. The other day, the battery felt hot to the touch, like uncomfortably hot.

It got me thinking.

What happens if that thing lights up in flight? Will a fire extinguisher put it out? Would I be able to pick it up and toss it out the window? If I tossed a flaming battery out the window, would the FAA get angry or would they rather me burn up in mid-air and auger the whole plane in?

I guess this is another plus in the column for old paper E6B & Sectional crowd...
Click to expand...
Seems I read that using a fire extigusher is bad. You have to cool it down and water is best. There was a video showing flight attendents what to do. Water, soda pop, whatever is available but dont use fire extingusers. Maybe battery packs are different, I dunno.
 
Why did u have to post this???? I fly with 2 battery packs, one of them is the highest FAA would allow in a commercial plane...its kinda big and have a whole lot of juice in it. I also carry a Samsung galaxy s7, though not Note 7, but u never know... man u ruined my evening

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
 
WannFly said:
Why did u have to post this???? I fly with 2 battery packs, one of them is the highest FAA would allow in a commercial plane...its kinda big and have a whole lot of juice in it. I also carry a Samsung galaxy s7, though not Note 7, but u never know... man u ruined my evening

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Lol, sorry. Usually while I'm falling asleep, I think about airplane stuff. Some things are dreams others are nightmares.
 
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