Cabin crew onboard Ryanair flights will now warn passengers about their electronic devices, asking passengers to alert crew immediately if their device overheats.
The normal Ryanair onboard safety briefing, includes information on how to use oxygen masks and what to do if the flight has to make an emergency landing, but now the onboard team will be including a new warning for passengers concerning electronic devices on flights.
Cabin crew now say: “If your device or its battery is damaged, hot, produces smoke, is lost or falls into the seat structure then please inform the cabin crew immediately.”
The new message is very important for flight safety and every passenger should check their device on a flight.
The warning is to make sure passengers are up-to-date with the latest onboard safety procedures, which include mitigating the risk of thermal runaway – this is when an electronic device overheats and catches fire. This can be caused by a device’s faulty lithium-ion battery or an incompatible charge cable.
If a passenger drops a personal electronic device down the side of a side they could be crushed in the mechanism.
That could cause a device to go into thermal runaway and set fire to the passenger’s seat.
Laptops, mobile phones and iPads all use the batteries and many people bring multiple devices on holiday, meaning there could be hundreds of devices on each flight.
The Civil Aviation Authority has warned that a lithium battery fire could cause catastrophic damage to an aircraft.
“All types of batteries must pass stringent tests. Batteries which are not tested such as counterfeit batteries pose a significant risk to flight safety.
“There have been occasions where incidents involving lithium batteries have occurred in the passenger cabin.
“Prompt actions of cabin cabin and subsequent actions by the flight crew can avoid an inflight fire becoming uncontrollable with potentially disastrous consequences.”
Most airlines will carry specialist battery fire containment bags which can deal with the danger in seconds.
