A well-known travel item was banned by an airline after it caught fire and destroyed one of its aircraft while it was on the runway.
You may think of a power bank to charge your electronics while in flight, a travel pillow for comfort, and headphones for watching back-to-back movies when you think of essential travel gear for a long-haul flight.
However, after a terrible incident, Air Busan in South Korea has decided to ban passengers from keeping power banks in overhead luggage bins due to a recent in-flight fire.
This comes after one of the airline’s aircraft caught fire on January 28 as it was getting ready to take off for Hong Kong.
According to Air Busan, a flight attendant initially noticed the fire in an overhead luggage bin on the back left side of the aircraft.
Fortunately, no one was hurt, and everyone on board was safely evacuated.
Government officials in South Korea are leading an inquiry into the cause of the incident. However, the cause has not yet been established.
Experts say that a combination of circumstances almost invariably causes air mishaps.
Beginning on Friday, carry-on bags for passengers will be examined at the boarding gates; those without power banks will be marked and placed in the overhead luggage bins.
Before being implemented on all flights, the airline plans to test the safeguards on certain routes.
In order to detect and address any overheating, smoke, or fire right away, passengers will also need to carry their personal power banks.
Air Busan stated that in addition to increasing crew training on fire safety, they are also adding more fire containment equipment to its fleet in response to the rise in overheating power banks.
One kind of rechargeable battery that is used in power banks and other gadgets including laptops, smartphones, tablets, and e-cigarettes is lithium.
They can cause fires if they short circuit due to damage or manufacturing flaws, so international aviation standards prohibit their storage in checked baggage.
In response, cabin crew typically have thermal containment boxes or bags to isolate the devices and fire extinguishers.
A month after two significant air incidents, South Korea has also announced plans to update its aviation safety system.
In a ministry statement, Deputy Minister of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport Baek Won-kuk stated that the government would work hard to rebuild the aviation safety system from the ground up in order to rebuild confidence in our nation’s aviation safety system.
