A Syrian woman travelling to the United States through Amman opens her laptop before checking in at Beirut international airport on March 22,2017. Hours after the US government warned that extremists plan to target passenger jets with bombs hidden in electronic devices, and banned carrying them in cabins on flights from 10 airports in eight countries in the Middle East and North Africa, Britain tightened airline security on flights from the same region, banning laptops and tablet computers from the plane cabin. / AFP PHOTO / ANWAR AMRO
The US order prohibiting passengers from carrying laptops and other electronics into the cabins of some overseas flights is raising concerns about a risk unrelated to terror: the potential for those devices’ lithium-based batteries to catch fire in the baggage hold.
The Flight Safety Foundation, a non-profit funded by airlines and other groups to reduce the risk of accidents, on April 7 issued a press release urging the industry to take steps not to “introduce another risk” from the highly flammable batteries powering the electronics.
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