

Apple iPhone spontaneously combusts aboard flight in Australia - zacharye
http://www.bgr.com/2011/11/28/apple-iphone-spontaneously-combusts-aboard-flight-in-australia/

======
bradleyland
Lithium-ion batteries contain significant amounts of, you guessed it, lithium.
Lithium reacts violently with many other substances. If the battery is damaged
or contains a fault, the result is lots of energy released (heat). This danger
exists in all devices that contain a Li-Ion battery, which is just about
everything these days.

~~~
mikeash
Surely the chemistry doesn't matter much. Any energy-dense battery will
contain a lot of energy by definition, and it seems improbable that there
wouldn't be a way to make it come out faster than normal. This problem will
only get worse as battery technology improves.

~~~
bradleyland
It matters only in so much that you needn't short a Li-Ion battery to have a
violent discharge of heat energy.

Shorting any battery will cause it to heat up, but lithium is a potent alkali
metal. It reacts _violently_ (as in fire and possible explosion) with water.
The moisture in your skin will do just fine. Contrast this with other battery
chemistries such as nickel-cadmium, which are practically benign by
comparison.

Here's a great video illustrating the results of dropping bits of various
alkali metals in to a bathtub full of water:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m55kgyApYrY>

~~~
gamble
That Brainiac video was faked. They didn't get the violent reaction they were
looking for from caesium, so they just rigged up a bomb in the bathtub.

[http://www.badscience.net/2006/07/brainiac-fake-
experiments-...](http://www.badscience.net/2006/07/brainiac-fake-experiments-
scandal-make-it-to-the-evening-standard/)

~~~
bradleyland
Boy is that disappointing. Braniac had the feel of a show that would pull that
kind of stunt though.

------
bri3d
LiPo/Li-Ion batteries on airplanes have been an issue for years - see, for
example, this article from 2010:
[http://travelsentry.blogspot.com/2010/08/future-of-flying-
wi...](http://travelsentry.blogspot.com/2010/08/future-of-flying-with-lithium-
ion.html)

At this point rechargeable lithium-based batteries are a more effective bomb
than 90% of the things the TSA has banned - but I suspect we won't see them
trying to take away laptops and phones anytime soon.

~~~
Shenglong
The TSA are a funny bunch. They've searched through my 80 year-old grandma's
bags and confiscated her paint. Yet, when I mentioned that the metal detector
failed to detect my solid metal watch, the agent said "it's ok - keep going".

~~~
RandallBrown
your watch was probably not made of a metal that mattered to them. I know the
zipper on my pants is made of metal but it never sets off the detector.

~~~
Shenglong
It usually sets the detector off ;)

------
mtigas
I find it funny that this was on the front page last night:

"Fliers Must Turn Off Devices, but It’s Not Clear Why"
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3283768>

Edit: Not implying anything about a relation to phone use during takeoff and
landing (BGR and Australian press release are vague), but I just found it
curious.

~~~
Udo
Damaged lithium batteries catch fire whether the device is on or not.

The original reason why the "no electronics during takeoff or landing"
regulation was adopted reaches back to the assumption that you can cause an
airliner's nav system to go out of whack with radio signals emitted from
consumer electronics.

As far as I know this argument has turned out to be pure FUD. However, once a
law or regulation is in effect, it is unlikely to ever be rolled back again -
this is probably the reason why they simply switched out the rationalization
for it to something else: they now say that electronic devices could turn into
deadly shrapnel during takeoff and landing.

Like so many "security" and "safety" related things today, the fact that they
make you switch off your iPod but don't actually force you to pack it away
safely requires a certain amount of cognitive dissonance of all parties
involved.

~~~
biturd
I can't locate it, and wikipedia fully backs up the idea that electronics
could interfere with Nav systems, however, I once read a compelling piece that
lead me to believe different.

It had something to do with FCC regulations and how you could somehow bypass
some system and get free calls, or calls could not be billed correctly,
perhaps it was data, but it certainly was cellular related.

I can't seem to locate the information now.

At any rate, it does seem strange, as they cell towers themselves are not
being asked to shut down, and they certainly broadcast much greater signals
than the actual cell phone. This signal is rained over the entire aircraft
24/7.

~~~
YuriNiyazov
The article that you mention (which I remember as well and also can't find)
was basically saying how in theory a cellphone from a plane could hop from
tower to tower much faster than they currently do if the user is in, say, a
car, and that could cause some problems for the cell phone system.

~~~
Udo
I remember something along those lines as well, it has nothing to do with
airline security and switching off electronic devices though. The issue here
is that a 2G/3G device on a flying plane does reach a lot of cell towers
simultaneously. The network is not designed for this, they pretty much assume
that you're in reach of only a handful of towers at any given time - so the
cell network could possibly be overloaded by thousands of people in the air
trying to connect to many towers at once.

------
liquid_x
This comes to mind: <http://xkcd.com/651/> (xkcd, Back Check)

~~~
electromagnetic
My major concern is that there's talk about using supercapacitors in portable
devices, and notably in cars. The concern being that capacitors are
specifically designed to discharge quickly, to the point that a shorted (IE
purposefully connecting two terminals) capacitor quickly explodes.

The concern being that should we start filling the floors of hybrid vehicles
with these, that we are essentially deploying fast moving bombs on our
streets, roads and highways, and all we're going to rely on is faith that
someone isn't going to put a switched connection between two terminals and
wait till they're parked outside a police station, abortion clinic or
elementary school and just flip the switch.

~~~
falling
Well, how is that different from gasoline?

~~~
electromagnetic
Gasoline doesn't explode in 3 seconds flat from a foil wrapper is how it's
different.

------
clumsysmurf
Lithium fires give off a number of toxic gasses like HF. Even if the fire was
safely contained, my concern would be if the people on board were exposed to
these toxins through inhalation. If a plane is recirculating cabin air, is
there a anything a pilot can do to expunge bad air in these cases?

~~~
weaksauce
A plane does not recirculate all of the cabin air; it recirculates about 50%.
Not ideal for the people but it's not like they are trapped with only the air
that they have onboard. Also, the recirculated air is HEPA filtered. I would
turn up my personal air nozzle if there was something like this in the future.

Source: <http://www.boeing.com/commercial/cabinair/facts.html>

~~~
clumsysmurf
HEPA does not filter gasses like HF.

------
racketeer
There appears to be a modification to this phone. - Steve Jobs' head is where
the apple bite is. Maybe that caused it?

~~~
kysol
[http://www.mod-gadget.com/tribute-stevejobs-iphone-4s-for-
st...](http://www.mod-gadget.com/tribute-stevejobs-iphone-4s-for-steve-rear-
panel-mod/)

I do agree that the bite looks like a head, but it doesn't look the same as
the one in the link above, especially when you take into account the missing
"Steve Jobs" and "1955-2011".

I'd put it down to a freakish break line causing fragmentation around the
bite. Backplate looks identical to mine (minus the damage).

------
eigenvector
Thank god this didn't happen in the USA. The poor iPhone owner would likely be
imprisoned right now.

~~~
potatolicious
I hate to be That Guy(tm), but only if his skin color was sufficiently dark.

~~~
tptacek
You guys are both "that guy" right now. Pretty weird to see it coming from
you.

~~~
potatolicious
Come on. Imagine a bearded Middle Eastern man with a device that's glowing red
hot and looking like it's about to explode, on a passenger plane.

We live in an era where a few brown-skinned men praying on an airplane is
enough to trigger passenger panic and the involvement of the FBI. Do you
really think that, if the above happened and the passenger was unfortunately
of the wrong race, that passengers _would not_ immediately jump to the
"terrorism" conclusion? In the last few years passengers have jumped to that
conclusion for _way_ less.

[edit] I'm not saying this would've meant throwing someone into Gitmo and
throwing away the key. But you have to admit, if this happened to anyone of
Middle Eastern descent, there's not a chance he wouldn't have been detained
and subject to a barrage of investigations.

~~~
tptacek
There is no way anyone who's phone battery ignited on a plane would be in
prison, but beyond that, I'm just watching the arc of this thread bend towards
dumbness and surprised to see you on it at all.

Do I think racism is alive and well all around this country? How about, just
guess, and then we can keep the discussion off HN. A few years ago, this might
have been a thread about battery chemistry. Now it's about the TSA. I have to
believe you think that's sad too.

~~~
potatolicious
There's really not much meat to the topic, after all - lithium battery
explodes... this is pretty much an everyday occurrence everywhere, about as
newsworthy as "car crash on freeway" and "pen explodes in pocket". Spectacular
and scary, sure, but this is a topic that is neither surprising nor
particularly alarming to a bunch of gadget geeks.

Is it really any surprise that the bulk of the discussion is applying to
meatier, more interesting/controversial tangents?

In any case, my OP is not really meant to be a lightning rod for Yet Another
TSA Bash(tm), but rather just an exasperated, cynical quip.

~~~
tptacek
I clicked through. You know it's "car crash on freeway". I didn't! One or two
posts stabbed at clarifying --- if you could see them through the conspiracy
fever stuff and the "derp derp held the wrong way derp" comments.

Anyways, I'm not trying to bag on you. My problem is with the whole site.

~~~
weaksauce
I find that since removing karma from comments made me less inclined to
participate and read the comments here. My participation is way down.

My time is valuable and the comment scores, albeit a flawed metric, served a
good purpose to filter out some of the less useful/insightful comments, I wish
there was a toggle in the preferences that would allow people to turn it on
per user.

~~~
potatolicious
I do have to agree. Traditionally HN has given token upvotes to cynical quips,
jokes, etc, but the bulk of upvotes have always gone to really insightful
comments. It's one of the things I enjoy about this community.

With the karma removed from comments, though, "witty joke with 7 upvotes" is
now completely indistinguishable at a glance from "extreme insight with 100
upvotes".

I don't think it's realistic to expect people to stop joking about topic X, or
making short quips about things... logically it makes sense to bring back some
kind of way to differentiate these posts.

------
mey
Google Lithium Ion Thermal Runaway

<https://www.google.com/search?q=lithium+ion+thermal+runaway>

~~~
angusgr
Bunnie Huang's great blog has a post with some nice informative anecdotes
about Lithum Ion thermal runaway. <http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=220>

------
GoodIntentions
He was just holding it wrong

------
jergosh
Assuming if this would've been reported had it happened before, all it means
is 'iPhones have one in 70 million chance of combusting.'

------
Groxx
Yowza. But yeah, lithium batteries do this sometimes on airplanes. Some of the
smaller ones don't allow lithium batteries in the cabins for this very reason.
That it's an iPhone isn't surprising in the least, and hardly front-page
material.

My theory is that it was already compromised somehow (maybe defective), and
the pressure decrease popped the container(s). And to people claiming OMG CASE
MOD, look more closely. A crack goes right through the line that would form
the glasses. It _could_ be a mod, but I highly doubt it.

------
CGamesPlay
It seems plausible to me that when the phone came out of airplane mode, it
increased radio transmission and/or CPU use. Due to some fault in one of those
systems, the thermal throttling didn't kick in, and caused enough heat to melt
open the battery. Perhaps the phone was jailbroken and overclocked?

~~~
josephcooney
Perhaps the phone was jailbroken and overclocked? So it's the user's fault?

~~~
CGamesPlay
If it was jailbroken and overclocked, then yes, it was the user's fault.

~~~
josephcooney
I find it both amusing and telling that that is the only possibility you
consider. Perhaps there was a manufacturing flaw in the battery, or it was
damaged by dropping, yet 'blame the user' seems to be your knee-jerk reaction.

~~~
CGamesPlay
I started this by saying "Perhaps" the phone was jailbroken. I don't assume
that is the case, I just provide it as a plausible option. Also notice that
the Apple logo on the phone back has been modified.

------
ww520
Time to ban all cellphones abroad any plane.

~~~
calloc
Don't give the politicians any ammo ...

~~~
bryanlarsen
Actually, that may finally trigger the backlash that injects some sanity into
the process.

