LAX Firecracker Had A Sony Battery

Written by Adam Gosling

Friday, 22 September 2006

There could be an IBM Thinkpad recall in the wings as news emerges that the IBM ThinkPad that exploded info flames at LAX airport was using a battery supplied by Sony. According to this report, Lenovo (now owner of the IBM PC division) has confirmed that the Thinkpad that caught fire at Los Angeles airport had a Sony battery. Just last week the company claimed that although it used Sony batteries it did not need to recall its notebook computers because they weree "Safe". The news about the latest public laptop explosion came just a week ago, but there are reports of a similar incident at Yahoo's US headquarters this week and the issue just keeps generating interest and concern as users realize these Lithium Ion batteries are potentially dangerous. Lithium Ion batteries are potentially lethal devices which if damaged (or poorly manufactured) can cause a short circuit which generates enough heat to combust the chemicals inside the casing. While it is not unusual for Lithium Ion batteries to do this if they have been damaged in some way, it was a manufacturing design fault which saw shards of metal cross contaminate the explosive materials in the Sony batteries that caused the recent recall by Dell and Apple. Manufacturers met this week to try to accelerate plans to develop industry standards for Lithium Ion batteries which could lead to safer laptops through better design and more consistent manufacturing processes. With IBM/Lenovo devices now drawn into the public revelation that laptop batteries are a threat on aircraft, it seems likely that even more restrictions on even more laptop brands are likely to be implemented by airlines. Related news items Tiny Rugged UMPC WIth Vista -10/10/2007 HP Goes iPaq Mad -06/09/2007 Leather-Bound ThinkPad Has Its Own Nerd -06/09/2007 Semi-Rugged With Grunt -05/09/2007 Fujitsu LifeBook - 12.1 inch; 11 hours; 1.53kg -21/08/2007 Newer news items Cisco Beefs Up Wireless LAN Security -18/02/2007 Exploding Laptop Video -13/11/2006 Check Point Plans Enterprise-Style Security For The Home -08/11/2006 Seagate To Encrypt Notebook Drives -30/10/2006 Lenovo Joins Dell, Apple In Sony Recall -03/10/2006 Older news items Vendors Contemplate Formal Standards For Lithium Ion -21/09/2006 Toshiba Joins Dell, Apple In Sony Recall -19/09/2006 IBM Laptop Explodes At LAX -17/09/2006 Dell, Apple Travel Restrictions Grow -15/09/2006 "Missed Call" SPAM Under ACMA Investigation -14/09/2006 Tag This Now: