Posted on 05/14/2018 5:22:56 PM PDT by Swordmaker
The crash of EgyptAir flight 804 into the Mediterranean Sea that killed 66 people was caused by a hot Apple product ... according to a new suit.
The families of several of the victims of the May 19, 2016 crash claim the tragedy was due to the co-pilot's iPhone 6S or iPad mini overheating in the cockpit and catching fire.
According to the docs ... an investigation revealed the device ignited and led to a bigger fire in the cockpit, which ultimately took the plane down.
It should be noted, however -- some industry experts have questioned this phone theory ... and believe the fire on the plane started beneath the cockpit in the avionics bay due to a short circuit or some kind of explosion.
Still, the families believe there's enough evidence to hold Apple responsible for the deaths of their loved ones ... so they're suing for damages. The airline is also listed on the suit.
We reached out to Apple and EgyptAir ... so far, no word back
And of course, that failure rate is taking all of them across the market and around the world into consideration. It lumps the most cheaply-produced, dangerous-from-the-factory garbage with the premium OEM-spec batteries.
The failure rate also includes those that are abused, neglected, and generally treated in a way that would make anything fail.
Post them up or send via FRmail.
I have yet to see a battery failure in such a device that wasn’t directly attributable to either abject abuse of the device/battery, or other conditions (such as improper charging with non OEM/out-of-spec gear).
From that linked article and video:
“We’ve seen batteries balloon in the past in iPhones and other smartphones, and again, it’s almost always due to damage resulting from an impact of some kind.”
I can link it, too. I can find the picture.
But here is the story...
The owner was in the building and had to make an emergency telephone call so it was “charging” for a long time. If he had seen it, he would have tried to stop it. BTW, the car was running the whole time so there ample time for it to happen and plenty of energy.
The car continued to dump power into the phone battery as it melted down and melted through the seat.
It caught the seat and interior on fire and was hot enough to start to melt the windshield and side window. The windows are intact but it is clear that they started to melt. HOT! What is the melting temperature of automobile glass?
And yes, it was an Iphone and an Apple charger.
I suggested that he file a lawsuit with Apple but he chose not to because we build equipment that is indirectly used by Apple customers.
Note: this can probably happen with any device that has a battery. What scares me is the trend to store solar energy produced by panels on residential homes in a bank of batteries. Multiply the damage done by this little phone battery by the xxxxx the size of a bank of batteries in the basement of a home. Maybe they'd use something a little more safe than Lithium Ion. The problem is that there is a huge amount of energy in a very small space (by design of course).
It happens...it happened to me, not the bulging but overheating and melting. It didn’t cause a fire, but burned the phone and the leather case in three areas and self-extinguished. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t even charging when it happened. No damage to the phone, no third-party repairs (or any repairs for that matter), and only Apple chargers were used when charging.
Something isn’t right -
Those lithium ion batteries burn EXTREMELY hot, no doubt about it. And yes, probably hot enough to melt glass.. BUT - the area where that heat is high enough with a battery that size is relatively small - and doubtful to be hot enough to heat the windshield from the distance of the seat. Something else must have caught fire that also burned hot. There HAS to be more to the story - and I would suspect it has something to do with why the owner was not willing to file a complaint/lawsuit against Apple.
The passenger seat and floor caught fire. It was sitting on the seat. The materials in the seat are flammable at the right temperature I guess. The whole passenger seat was on fire when I found the car. The whole interior was flooded with smoke.
The car owner is the business owner who does a lot if business indirectly with Apple. It might be a win a little/lose A LOT if he sued Apple. I’ll figure out how to upload the picture tonight. It is worth seeing.
Yeah. Don’t leave anything charging when you’re not around.
Or when you can keep an eye on it. That probably includes charging while you are asleep.
Some people fold them into their bedding and under their pillow while they are sleeping.
True.
Goodness! It looks almost like there was a pile of combustible batteries in that seat! I’m even more convinced that wasn’t simply an iPhone fire (indeed - if this was a thing, we would hear a LOT more about such disasters with massive lawsuits with or without your boss.
I have a wonderful ap for my I phone called WAZE. It is superior to my old Garmin GPS device. It is hard on the battery so I plug it in.
I travel a good bit and have my I phone rigged to play audio books through the radio.
When both aps are really cooking, the phone heats up a good bit.
The melted glass indicates that there was a lot of heat.
Hey, here is a thought: the seats are probably heated. It is a Lexus. Electrical or vented?
Maybe the phone started the process, burned through the seat,shorted out the heated seat element if electrical, the car was running and continued to pump current into the seat, igniting the seat...
Possible...
I’m trying to figure out how the wire was still attached to the phone - if the fire was hot enough to melt all of that - how could the flimsy (even the better OEM kind) not be literally charred to nothing?
But I understand what you are saying — the fuse should have blown or the wire disconnected once it had shorted.
Car seats and misc material are supposed to be flame retardant. Of course, any nonflammable material will catch fire if the fire or heat is hot enough.
If the phone weren't involved, I would have expected it to have retained some residual form and yet it was a pile of goop and metal and glass on the floor. I wish that I had taken a pix of it. It was sitting on my boss's desk for a few days after.
Also, I didn't think to look at the seat for a heating element. Looks like an elaborate fan mechanism (from a random search on the Internet). No doubt a lot of power since it has a heating element (I think). Wonder if the blower/heating element is on a fuse?
To paraphrase Dick Cheney, Apple CEO Tim Cook is a double flaming ***-hole.
Uh, no. Your story doesn't hold up. Apple doesn't MAKE a car charger. Apple's stores sell Belkin car chargers.
It has to be a third party car charger and when a car is on, idling, the voltage can be higher then specifications if the device is just a plain resistance 12V to 5V DC voltage dropping device that many of the USB car chargers are. You can have as high as 16 volts in some cars. . . which means that what is being fed to the iPhone is actually 6 to 7 volts. . . with no amperage limiting circuitry. Great formula for a fire.
If you are referring to a cig plug, the the Lexus didn’t have one. The cable was plugged into the dash. I presume usb.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.