Lithium batteries have become the number one safety risk to aircraft, according to the UK's aviation regulator, which is now urging passengers to keep the devices that contain them close at hand. The advice, reported by BBC News, is to carry items such as mobile phones, vapes and power banks on board in the cabin rather than packing them away in the hold.
The reason lies in what makes the batteries so useful in the first place. They are found in a huge range of everyday gadgets, from laptops and phones to vapes and power banks, and store a great deal of energy in a very small space. The downside is that if a battery overheats or is defective, it can ignite extremely quickly, as a laboratory test shown in the report demonstrated.
The warning is grounded in recent scares in the air. Flames broke out in the overhead baggage compartment of an Air China plane last October, an incident thought to have been caused by a lithium battery. The risk is not only one of fire in flight but of the panic and disruption that a sudden blaze in a packed cabin can bring.
A more recent case underlined how a single device can derail a journey. Last month an easyJet flight bound for Luton was diverted to Rome after a power bank began charging in a passenger's luggage, forcing the aircraft to land short of its destination as a precaution.
With the devices now so common among travellers, the regulator is asking people to think carefully about how they pack. Keeping batteries in the cabin, where any problem can be spotted and dealt with quickly, is meant to reduce the chance of delays caused by bags having to be pulled from a plane, or in the worst case, a devastating fire.