Lithium fire - what would you do?

Yep. Same as that.

So how does one throw out / bag the G5 / Aspen / etc that is on fire? ;)

tmo wrote:

So how does one throw out / bag the G5 / Aspen / etc that is on fire? ;)

Those are certified. They need a certified charging system etc. which hopefully avoids any issues. I once looked into this and the requirements for certified devices which contain LiPo batteries are non trivial. But then they are expensive. I did just order a new battery for our MD302 backup instrument and it is something like 400 Euro.

The backup battery for the Garmin G5 is $155 at Aircraft Spruce and the same unit is listed for both the certified and non-certified units, as per the Garmin web site.

I very much doubt the charging circuitry in the G5 versions (certified vs experimental) is any different.

Point is, I believe most issues with lithium batteries were “growing pains” where the “engineers” used customers as beta testers to see what they can get away with in the real world. IIRC it was mostly the ultra thin, ultra dense devices that had issues.

This chap had a lithium battery fire on his e-bike. Skip to about 1.20 to see some of the video, looks pretty unpleasant. He claims that his peak current use was 45% of the max continuous so seems far from ideal. Possibly a bad batch.

I’ve had no issue with the odd lithium thing I carry in the aircraft, but I too would hopefully be able to throw out the window or door quickly if needed

Perhaps a trivial question.
In the hunt for ever space and weight saving, and just in general too much “additional” gear onboard.
An onboard fire is clearly an emergency situation, and while dropping items from an aircraft (airborne) is not legal in normal operations, a burning iPad would need to be contained in a fire proof bag or, and this is my question for opinions, “simply” thrown out the door/window?
Depending on the time it takes to first recognize the lithium (or similar) fire, you´d want to act real quick.
I personally think that it would take longer to find and fetch the fire proof bag than it would take to open the door and dispose it straight away.

I´m looking for ideas as to what I may have overlooked and for your thoughts – what would you do? Do you actually carry a fire proof bag?

What a coincidence, was just thinking the same.. Rather than fumbling with such a bag my intuition would also be to throw the thing overboard. But really depends on the design of the canopy/doors of course whether this is feasible in-flight. Peter may not wish to open his gull-wing door. Also there is a risk of the device creating damage aft.

If feasible, all you need is some fire proof gloves at hand.

Very good thread idea

I guess we all carry some portable electronics, or EFBs…
I gave it some thoughts, and came to the conclusion that I would reduce speed ASAP, and then slightly open my sliding canopy to eject the culprit. No bag, no time for bag, and just hoping the fuming device doesn’t hit and damage any important part of the tail feathers…
And also prey for that same canopy to stay attached, since it is not approved to be open in flight (it’s been tried by others, and seems to stay put).

Same here – if I have a fire either I get out or the fire gets out.

The main risk seems to come when charging, or when the battery is damaged.

I have some decent quality charging ports in my aircraft, but I have considered not charging due to this risk. So far, I’m still charging.

Another option is to just leave the burning device in the back, open the vent so I can breath, and let it burn. Not sure if there is enough energy in an ipad or iphone battery to start melting aluminium.

It seems like a hot topic in the airlines, so hopefully there will soon be some more analysis done on this potential serious problem, and some ways to predict it happening.