Battery-powered devices are overheating more often on planes, raising alarm

Devices powered by lithium-ion batteries are overheating more often during airline flights and passengers often put them in checked bags that go into the cargo hold, where a fire might not be detected as quickly.

Overheating incidents rose 28 per cent from 2019 to 2023, although such events remain relatively rare, UL Standards said in a report released on Monday.

E-cigarettes overheated more often than any other device, based on reports from 35 airlines, according to the report.

In 60 per cent of the cases, the overheating called thermal runaway happened near the seat of the passenger who brought the device on board.

In July, a smoking laptop in a passenger's bag led to the evacuation of a plane awaiting takeoff at San Francisco International Airport. Last year, a flight from Dallas to Orlando, Florida, made an emergency landing in Jacksonville, Florida, after a battery caught fire in an overhead bin.

More than one-quarter of passengers surveyed for the study said they put vapin