Lithium Batteries Receiving VERY Close Scrutiny

How safe are lithium batteries when they're carried as cargo aboard aircraft? It's a valid question, given how pervasive they are. Lithium batteries are used in all sorts of laptops... and cell phones as well.

Now, the NTSB wants to know if lithium batteries carried as cargo aboard a UPS DC-8 flight caused a fire that burned for about more than four hours in Philadelphia last February.

As Aero-News reported, the crew declared an emergency while on approach. All three crew members were able to escape the rapidly escalating fire, and were treated for minor injuries.

The NTSB isn't fixed on lithium batteries as the cause of the fire -- not yet -- but several other possible ignition sources have been ruled out.

Furthermore, there's the sketchy safety record involving lithium ion power cells on board airplanes.

The Washington Post reports less than two months ago, a battery packed in a bag stowed in an overhead bin on a flight in Chicago started to smoke. A flight attendant used a fire extinguisher on it, and the battery was hauled off the plane and dumped on the tarmac -- where it burst into flames.

In Memphis, two years ago, a shipment of lithium batteries bound for Paris erupted in flames as it was being loaded onto an aircraft. And back in 1999, a similar shipment burned as it was being unloaded from a passenger flight at LAX.

In the case of the UPS DC-8 that went up in flames on that cold February night in Philadelphia... several lithium batteries were found in the wreckage... many of them partially burned.

FMI: www.ntsb.gov