02-22-2012, 08:01 AM
A UPS 747 aircraft crashed in Dubai and the likely culprit is a fire caused by lithium batteries. There have been fires that were caused by laptop batteries in overhead bins but due to the easy accessibility they were quickly found and extinguished. Lithium batteries are now considered a hazmat by the FAA and require special handling during air transport. As far as I know it only involves rechargable batteries, the single use-ones should still be oK. But don't quote me on that. The automatic fire suppression systems on board can extinguish lithium-ion battery fires but not lithium-metal-cell battery fires. So if the self ignite they can burn until the fire spreads to the fuel tanks, then its all over.