Last week, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recommended that airlines prohibit passengers from carrying e-cigarettes in checked bags, citing recent incidents where the devices are believed to have caused fires in cargo holds or in baggage areas. The voluntary safety bulletin cites two incidents — one in August, where an e-cigarette in a checked bag caught fire and forced a plane to be evacuated; and another in January where a bag in a baggage area caught fire due to an overheated e-cigarette. The bulletin can be found here: usa.gov/15xYwnv
The FAA stated:
These incidents and several others occurring outside of air transportation have shown that e-cigarettes can overheat and cause fires when the heating element is accidentally activated or left on. This danger may be exacerbated by the growing trend of users modifying and rebuilding their reusable e-cigarette devices (personal vaporizers) and interchanging original and aftermarket batteries, heating elements, and vaporizing components,” the bulletin reads. ICAO also recommends that e-cigarettes not be checked, but rather carried in the cabin — the reasoning is that if an e-cigarette begins to overheat inside the cabin, “it can be immediately identified and mitigated.
