Posted on Tuesday, August 15 2006 @ 4:09 CEST by Thomas De MaesschalckThe Federal Aviation Administration also logged 60 such incidents in aircraft of airports since 1991.
During the past two years, six incidents have occurred on aircraft, including five fires plus a overheating torch that "had to be handled with oven mitts".Read more at The Inquirer.
The WSJ notes the case of Lufthansa Flight 435 which on May 15 was sat at Chicago O'Hare International Airport preparing for a nine-hour flight to Munich, when, according to witnesses, smoke began to float from the luggage bin above seat 2A.
A smoking case was tossed out of the plane before erupting into flames. Inside, investigators discovered a "charred laptop computer and a six-pack of melted lithium-ion batteries," the Journal notes The owner of the laptop confessed to having bought non-standard batteries on eBay.
After a number of scares involving non-rechargeable lithium batteries, these were banned from flights by the FAA in 2004.
