Lighter, more powerful and longer-lasting than other batteries, lithium cells power devices from Apple Inc.’s iPhone to some of the components of Boeing Co.’s 787 Dreamliner, including the Honeywell International Inc. emergency locator transmitter linked to a July 12 fire in a Dreamliner parked at a London airport.
However, lithium power cells can, in rare instances, overheat in uncontrollable chemical reactions, creating the risk of disastrous fires. This comes as their use in passengers’ personal electronics and aircraft systems proliferates, said John Cox, a Washington-based aviation safety consultant who co-wrote a 2013 U.K. Royal Aeronautical Society report on aircraft fires.
The July 12 blaze on the Ethiopian Airlines Enterprise 787 was in a difficult-to-reach space and couldn’t be put out by the plane’s fire extinguishers, according to U.K. regulators. Only one third of airliners with such hidden fires can be expected to land safely, an earlier U.K. study concluded.
“We have never been in a safer time to fly,” said Cox. “But when we see any trend in risk that’s increasing, we have to look at that more closely.”
Manufactured by companies including Energizer Holdings Inc., based in St. Louis, and Ultralife Corp., based in Newark, N.Y., lithium batteries are now a $31-billion-a-year market. They are increasingly finding their way onto airplanes in such things as defibrillators and emergency lighting, said Mark Rogers, director of the Air Line Pilots Association’s dangerous goods program.
“It’s more than a 787 issue,” Rogers said.
Two lithium-ion batteries made by Kyoto, Japan-based GS Yuasa Corp. for the 787’s electrical system overheated and emitted fumes in January, prompting a three-month grounding of the plane model. Boeing redesigned the batteries, installing a fireproof case and other protections.
A different type of battery that burns more fiercely, a non-rechargeable lithium metal cell, powered the Honeywell beacon that caught fire in London.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said July 19 it intended to order airlines flying the 787 to inspect the beacon for crimped wires and signs of heating or moisture, a step it finalized last Thursday. The U.K.’s Air Accidents Investigative Branch had recommended that the FAA order airlines to disable the beacons.
Investigators are examining whether a wire smashed under the beacon battery cover caused a short-circuit, a person familiar with the probe said.
Since 2009, there have been 26 instances of lithium-based batteries overheating or catching fire aboard U.S. carriers, according to an FAA log.
All of those cases involved batteries brought on board by passengers or shipped as cargo, not batteries installed in airplane equipment. Lithium cells made up 78.8 percent of the 33 cases involving batteries in that period.
The FAA issued a safety alert to airlines in 2010 after a UPS Boeing 747 carrying a shipment of lithium batteries caught fire and crashed in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Lithium-manganese-dioxide batteries, like those that power the Honeywell beacons, can be so volatile and difficult to extinguish that the FAA banned their shipment as cargo on passenger planes in 2004.
The market for non-rechargeable lithium batteries, such as the one used in the Honeywell device, was about $16 billion last year. It’s expected to grow 6 percent to 7 percent annually, said Vishal Sapru, energy and environment research manager for consultant Frost & Sullivan, based in Mountain View, Calif.
For rechargeable lithiumion batteries, the market was about $15 billion and is expected to more than triple to $51 billion by 2018, Sapru said.
“There are lithium batteries everywhere,” said Hans Weber, chief executive officer of Tecop International Inc., a San Diego-based aerospace consulting company. “Things that are compact and need a fair amount of energy, they all have a lithium battery of some sort. I don’t think there’s a choice.”
Aircraft manufacturers are using more lithium-based batteries for the same reason they’ve become the power source of choice in personal electronics, said Yet-Ming Chiang, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of materials science and engineering.
These batteries hold more energy and last longer than others, said Chiang, who testified April 11 at a U.S. National Transportation Safety Board forum on battery safety.
The batteries aren’t inherently dangerous if used properly, and manufacturers have improved quality and safety, said George Kerchner, executive director of the Rechargeable Battery Association. The Washington trade group represents companies including Apple and St. Louis-based Energizer.
About a decade ago, the rate of lithium-battery failures was much higher, partly because of lax manufacturing processes, Weber said.
“We didn’t get rid of them 10 years ago when we had more incidences of failure,” he said. “Now that there have been definite improvements, we’re less likely to get rid of them.”
The Honeywell beacon on the Dreamliner is located in a section of the airplane, above the ceiling panels near the tail, where fires have proven deadly, according to U.S. and U.K. regulators.
A fire that started in the ceiling of a Swissair Boeing MD-11 on Sept. 2, 1998, caused the pilots to lose control. All 229 people aboard died when the plane plunged into the ocean near Halifax, Nova Scotia.
It took only 16 minutes from the time the crew detected the fire until the plane became uncontrollable, according to an FAA advisory. There have been at least seven fatal accidents worldwide after fires started in hidden areas, according to the advisory.
Boeing designs many fire protections into its planes, such as isolating flammable materials from heat sources, said Marc Birtel, a spokesman for the Chicago-based company.
“Fire protection is one of the highest considerations at Boeing,” he said.
The U.K. Civil Aviation Authority, in a 2002 study reviewing earlier fires, concluded that only one-third of crews would reach the ground if a fire broke out in a hidden area.
“Large transport aircraft do not typically carry the means of fire detection or suppression in the space above the cabin ceilings and had this event occurred in flight, it could pose a significant safety concern and raise challenges for the cabin crew in tackling the resulting fire,” the Air Accidents Investigative Branch said in a July 18 update to the London investigation.
Information for this report was contributed by Deena Kamel Yousef and Julie Johnsson of Bloomberg News.
Business, Pages 19 on 07/29/2013