Gadget Bloggers

In a United Airlines airport waiting room in Los Angeles for a flight to London yesterday, a ThinkPad laptop flared up and burst into flame.  At least, that’s the story that an eyewitness relayed to Gizmodo:

“So we’re waiting for a flight in the United lounge at LAX, the flight next to ours was heading to London and in the middle of final boarding, when suddenly this guy comes running the wrong way up the jetway, pushing other boarding passengers out of the way, he quickly drops his laptop on the floor and the thing immediately flares up like a giant firework for about 15 seconds, then catches fire. About a hundred other people in the lounge jumped up and began a mix of gawking and general panic, I clearly heard a few fleeing individuals saying something about terrorists. The fire burned for a minute while everybody just stared at it, then another flare up, this one much larger than the first, drove a larger group of gawkers away. Eventually, the high intensity flaring calmed down and a larger fire kicked in, all the while letting off a thick cloud of white smoke that was slowly filling the terminal. Finally, an employee came over with a fire extinguisher and put it out of its misery.”

Take note of the following: 

• This story has not hit the wires.  It will be interesting to see if it does, and whether coverage of this incident might lead to new calls for banning laptops on airlines.  We can also wonder how many similar incidents like this happen, and never get reported.
• The ThinkPad is not a laptop brand that has been subject to recalls, at least not yet.  So far, only Apple and Dell have ordered recalls.  We know that the recalled batteries in Dell laptops were actually manufactured by Sony, and that those same batteries are used by other manufacturers.  The batteries in that ThinkPad may have been original equipment, or may have been third-party replacements; we don’t know.
• From the story being told here, the guy with the laptop “running the wrong way” out the jetway was apparently already aboard the airliner when he realized there was a problem.  As the eyewitness puts it, “who knows what would have happened” if the flareup had happened a few minutes later, after the plane had taken off.

Requiring that laptops be packed in checked baggage doesn’t solve this problem either - fire within the baggage hold of an airliner is as bad or worse than having a flareup.  But three airlines - Virgin Atlantic, Qantas and Korean Air - have banned the inflight use of most Dell and Apple laptops.  Will Saturday’s incident at LAX add fuel to this simmering trend?    

[via ZDNet]