By 
Last week, the FAA issued a statement regarding the use of the defective Galaxy Note 7 on flights. The statement advises anyone using the device to “not turn on or charge the devices on board aircraft and not to stow them away in any checked baggage.” Several other countries followed suit, suggesting that passenger simply leaves their Galaxy Note 7 turned off throughout their flight so there wouldn’t be any issues or dangers.
This led to an interesting question as to how many times have devices caused incidents mid-flight, which may have prompted the FAA to make this statement quickly. According to the Aviation Safety Network, which keeps track of any battery incidents on flights, there have been no reports of Android devices causing in-flight issues.
However, there have been 3 reports of iPhone’s causing issues on flights, with BlackBerry devices only causing 1 issue in the past. The last report of an issue occurred in July of 2013 through Ethiopian Airlines and caused no fatalities. The first occurrence was in February of 2006 through UPS and also caused no fatalities. There were two instances between September 2010 and July 2011 that caused a total of 4 fatalities due to lithium-ion batteries being transported on board which caught fire and forced crashes.
Although there are every few issues that have ever occurred, it’s apparent that the FAA and other flight agencies around the world don’t want to change that.
Comments