Ever been on a flight and heard an announcement to shut down
every electronic device? There is a reason behind why they make passengers turn
off electronics. The radio waves of a few electronics can cause some
malfunction in the avionics technology of the plane. They can also interrupt
the vital components of the plane.
There have been many incidents on passenger planes in
regards to the batteries. Prior to 2010, there weren’t many battery-related
incidents on passenger planes but after 2011, when the technology was becoming
very mainstream, we observed more and more incidents per year. Pre-2011, the
battery-related incidents were up to 1 to 8 incidents per year. However, after 2011,
there was a sudden spike of battery-related incidents which resulted in an
average of 30 incidents per annum.
Overall, majority of the passenger plane incidents were
caused by battery-related incidents thanks to the active tracking since 2006. It
was recorded that 187 out of 289 (64 percent) passenger plane incidents were
because of batteries.
Delta Airlines comes up on top of the incident number with
29 incidents followed by Southwest with 36. United Airlines had 23 incidents,
and American Airlines had 10. The other airlines have reported less than 10 incidents.
The devices that caused the incidents are also various. The leading
devices are the power banks and other rechargeable batteries having reported 39
cases. Vaping devices generated 36 incidents, laptops and tablets followed with
24 cases and then cellphones were linked to 22 cases.
Take a look at the following infographic for more
information.
Infographic by: powerbankexpert
