NEW DELHI: India may soon adopt stricter rules for power banks on board aircraft following recent instances worldwide, including one in the country, of lithium-ion batteries catching fire.
On Sunday, a passenger’s power bank caught fire on a Dimapur-bound IndiGo flight when the aircraft was taxiing at Delhi airport. Now, Directorate General of Civil Aviation is “taking up this issue”, said a senior official.
The regulator is learnt to be taking technical inputs on the issue. Foreign airlines are increasingly putting restrictions on power banks. Some require the power bank to be kept in the seat pocket or in a bag under the seat in front and not in overhead bins.
From Oct 1, Dubai-based Emirates “prohibited” use any power bank. While it allows a passenger to carry one power bank under 100 Watt Hours, they can neither use it to charge a device, nor charge the power bank in the aircraft cabin. The new regulations also mandate that “all power banks accepted for transport must have capacity rating information available”.
Most phones and sophisticated lithium battery-powered devices have an internal trickle system that slowly adds current into the battery to prevent overcharging, but many basic power banks may not have this safeguard.
Singapore Airlines from April 1 did not allow flyers to charge power banks via onboard USB ports, or use them to charge their devices.
Last week, there was a lithium battery fire on an Air China flight from China to South Korea, forcing it to be diverted to Shanghai.
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