Are you speaking of this specific case? I don't know enough about it to comment either way. My guess is that a suit against the customer would be successful in some jurisdiction.

In general? What's the point of a COC (which all airlines have) if they are not enforceable?

I don't think they are unenforceable in general, but they are not automatically enforceable, either. The courts generally apply tests such as "reasonable communicativeness" and the "released valuation doctrine" in deciding whether they are enforceable in the specific circumstances of that case. These tests place burdens and expectations on both parties. For instance, if a passenger's claim for a few hundred dollars worth of jewelry is denied because the CoC excludes jewelry, the courts will likely determine that the passenger had little incentive to explore the limitations and so the burden is higher on the airline to communicate those limitations. But if someone files a claim for tens of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry, then the court may determine that the passenger had a strong incentive to determine the airlines limits of liability and failed to do so.

 

What's so hypothetical asking whether or not you are actually willing to abide by the 52 page Contract of Carriage you agreed to?

Since I agreed to it, by my own rules I expect to abide by it.

Which is fine: as much as I despise travel in general, I've done enough of it over the past hundred years or so -- both business and pleasure -- to know how make the process as painless as possible.

This includes purchasing a ticket the itinerary of which concludes at my intended destination.

And leaving the shrieking, spitting, feces-flinging service monkey at home.

 

And leaving the shrieking, spitting, feces-flinging service monkey at home.

That's all well and good, but the problem is that the person sharing the row with you might not have.

That's when you'll wish you had remembered to bring your service bat.

 

That's all well and good, but the problem is that the person sharing the row with you might not have.

That's when you'll wish you had remembered to bring your service bat.
View attachment 170103

I prefer the satisfying crack of traditional wood over the annoying ping of aluminum.

 

I prefer the satisfying crack of traditional oak over the annoying ping of aluminum.

As long as neither masks the even more satsifying crack of monkey/monkey-owner skulls, I'm good.

 

https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2019/02/13/vape-pen-battery-delays-laguardia-houston-flight/

 

https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2019/02/13/vape-pen-battery-delays-laguardia-houston-flight/

So what's so special about this incident? Why does it merit such coverage? Hopefully because it was a local story.

The report itself says that there's been 225 incidents of various batteries causing fires since 1991. If the rate were constant, that would be about one every six to seven weeks. I doubt it's been constant and that it's a lot more common now than in 1991 when hardly anyone brought something with a rechargeable battery onto a plane.

A quick search found a Consumer Reports article from June 2017 that cited an FAA report saying that there's a battery-caused fire on a plane every ten to eleven days and that the rate was increasing rapidly. It doubled each year from 2014, to 2015, to 2016. So I suspect nearly all of those 225 incidents have been in the last decade.

As an interesting aside, the Consumer Reports article had the following statement:

"Next, it’s critical to cool the battery, which can reach temperatures of 1,000° F—more than twice as hot as the highest setting on a home oven."

It's only about 50% hotter than the highest setting on my home oven.

 

So what's so special about this incident? Why does it merit such coverage? Hopefully because it was a local story.
...

Maybe because of recent stories about vaping pens in the news.
https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/fort-worth/article225511100.html

The combination of a small but high current battery plus a heating element with a sensor that activates due to pressure changes with the net result of a sparking hydride fire (that we have class D extinguishers for) makes an exciting story.
https://whatstrending.com/video/video-vape-pen-exploding-in-guys-pants-caught-on-camera/?jwsource=cl
https://www.elitefire.co.uk/help-advice/detect-and-extinguish-class-d-fires/

 

"Next, it’s critical to cool the battery, which can reach temperatures of 1,000° F—more than twice as hot as the highest setting on a home oven."

It's only about 50% hotter than the highest setting on my home oven.

Communications is for those who can't do math.

 

Maybe because of recent stories about vaping pens in the news.
https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/fort-worth/article225511100.html

That's highly likely. The "news" industry are actually a bunch of lemmings. Time and time again they've jumped on a bandwagon and created months-long "major breaking news" blitzes about things that haven't changed for years and years. Usually because someone caught something on tape/film/camera/whatever.

I remember about twenty years ago an F-117 crashed at an airshow and was caught on film and then every week there was national news about another military plane involved in some kind of incident somewhere around the world. They made it sound like this was an unexplicable series of disasters besetting our military and that our nation's defense was in serious jeopardy if it wasn't addressed right away. Until someone finally bothered to check and discovered that, largely because of the nature of combat training doctrine and also because of the kinds of things that get classified as "incidents", the U.S. military had been having about fifty incidents a year for a couple of decades.

I remember another time when a child was kidnapped and it was caught on tape. Then the same thing -- every abduction everywhere was now national news and only after a couple of months of reporting on this new epidemic did they bother to check and discovered that the rate of child abductions was not only not higher, but was continuing the long-term downward trend it had been following for many years.

The combination of a small but high current battery plus a heating element with a sensor that activates due to pressure changes with the net result of a sparking hydride fire (that we have class D extinguishers for) makes an exciting story.

Since they work on pressure differentials, I wouldn't expect the pressure changes in an aircraft to cause a problem.

But, it would be interesting to see the data (and I would bet that there IS plenty of data out there on it).

 

That's highly likely. The "news" industry are actually a bunch of lemmings. Time and time again they've jumped on a bandwagon and created months-long "major breaking news" blitzes about things that haven't changed for years and years. Usually because someone caught something on tape/film/camera/whatever.

I remember about twenty years ago an F-117 crashed at an airshow and was caught on film and then every week there was national news about another military plane involved in some kind of incident somewhere around the world. They made it sound like this was an unexplicable series of disasters besetting our military and that our nation's defense was in serious jeopardy if it wasn't addressed right away. Until someone finally bothered to check and discovered that, largely because of the nature of combat training doctrine and also because of the kinds of things that get classified as "incidents", the U.S. military had been having about fifty incidents a year for a couple of decades.

I remember another time when a child was kidnapped and it was caught on tape. Then the same thing -- every abduction everywhere was now national news and only after a couple of months of reporting on this new epidemic did they bother to check and discovered that the rate of child abductions was not only not higher, but was continuing the long-term downward trend it had been following for many years.



Since they work on pressure differentials, I wouldn't expect the pressure changes in an aircraft to cause a problem.

But, it would be interesting to see the data (and I would bet that there IS plenty of data out there on it).

It should but there is a restriction in air flow on the fluid side (condensation chamber ) so the pressure equalization is not instantaneous during rapid ambient pressure changes.

Somebody has to make the chips that control (some have closed loop temp control) the fancy Vap pens , so there is data about possible operational failure modes and countermeasures in the controllers.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US9549573B2/en

The printed circuit board (PCB) may comprise a microcontroller; switches; circuitry comprising a reference resister; and an algorithm comprising logic for control parameters; wherein the microcontroller cycles the switches at fixed intervals to measure the resistance of the resistive heating element relative to the reference resistor, and applies the algorithm control parameters to control the temperature of the resistive heating element.

The micro-controller may instruct the device to turn itself off when the resistance exceeds the control parameter threshold indicating that the resistive heating element is dry.

The pressure sensors are very similar to microphones.
http://www.qinyitec.com/pro/8511733.html

 

It should but there is a restriction in air flow on the fluid side (condensation chamber ) so the pressure equalization is not instantaneous during rapid ambient pressure changes.

I would be surprised (which is far from impossible) that the equalization rate isn't fast enough to keep up with anything approaching a normal rate of pressure change during altitude changes of an aircraft.

But, that might very much not be the case in a depressurization event. What a time to add a fire to an already serious situation! So I would be even more surprised if this hasn't been thoroughly evaluated.

 

 

As usual, a bunch of idiots driving much too fast for the road conditions .

 

As usual, a bunch of idiots driving much too fast for the road conditions .

But they have all wheel drive and big tires!

 

A poor fella was killed by an exploding tyre from a walkway. At what pressure are they normally filled?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47311142

An airport worker in southern California has been killed after a tyre exploded during maintenance work, officials said on Wednesday.

 

A poor fella was killed by an exploding tyre from a walkway. At what pressure are they normally filled?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47311142

Don't know the pressure but a large tire flying off the rim could easily kill a person.
https://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/threads/glad-im-not-a-passenger.105696/page-15#post-1353501

 

At what pressure are they normally filled?

Dunno, but as the tyre was in a workshop at the time perhaps it was being put on to the wheel. One trick that tyre-fitters use (according to Youtube videos, so it must be true ) is to squirt a highly inflammable liquid into the tyre then ignite it so that the resulting mini-explosion instantly inflates the tyre to seal the bead on to the wheel rim.

 

Dunno, but as the tyre was in a workshop at the time perhaps it was being put on to the wheel. One trick that tyre-fitters use (according to Youtube videos, so it must be true ) is to squirt a highly inflammable liquid into the tyre then ignite it so that the resulting mini-explosion instantly inflates the tyre to seal the bead on to the wheel rim.

I've seen that technique firsthand, and it's true. It's a very effective way to install a new tire on a rim. But the safest way to do it is through the use of a "bazooka" (as we call those devices down here) which is simply a handheld air tank with a large diameter output hose that ends in a flat nozzle that is fit between the tire and the rim. The tank is filled using an ordinary compressor, and then the valve is quickly opened to let all the air out at once.

 

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/ba-gibraltar-flight-scli-intl/index.html

Video footage of the incident, which contains some strong language, shows the plane see-sawing from side to side as it struggles against the wind.