*Sonic*

Article from Computer Weekly

All it takes is 10 or so people to apparently threaten to blow up a plane and instantly the aviation industry grinds to a halt.

Whilst any aircraft lost to terrorism is one too many, look at the statistics. There were around 2.3 million commercial take-offs and landings at UK airports in 2005. Even if all 10 bombers had succeeded, the chance of it being your flight is one in 230,000. This is a tenth of the probability of winning a prize on a premium bond.

Now think about the recall of laptop batteries by Dell and Apple: around six million to date. It has been reported that out of 1.8 million laptops, nine Apple users suffered burns when their batteries exploded and caught fire. With that level of failure, we could expect 30 failures from the six million recalls.

People take their laptopss onto Aircraft. So what is the probability that one of them is unknowingly carrying a potential bomb? The good news is that with around 60 million laptops sold globally since 2002, only one in ten may have a faulty battery.

The bad news is that the UK airports alone handled 229 million passengers in 2004. Assuming that only 5% of them were carrying a laptop, this would correspond to over 10 million people taking laptops onto aircraft each year.

Plug in the numbers and these predict that in any year there is a 50% chance that somebody is carrying a potential bomb. Has the aviation industry responded to this threat? Sorry sir, you cannot board with that bottle of water, just ensure your bomb is placed in the overhead locker or under the seat in front of you for take-off.


Now apprarently they maybe just taking this threat seriously, as some Airports are now refusing Dell or Apple laptops on board planes due to the exploding battery potentials, with other Airports looking to follow suit

Another article I have just read is this one

Downtime is less than reassured by news of another Dell laptop fire.
This time David Costello was travelling in his truck with his daughter through Florida when the laptop started smoking.

Costello flung it onto the back seat only to ignite a major fire, causing him to crash into a road sign and hastily retreat to a safe distance to watch the truck get burnt to a cinder.

With laptop users already understandibly jumpy, Dell will not have done much to ease frayed nerves by pointing out that the laptop in question was not, in fact, among those that have recently been subject to a recall.

Not sure how that is meant to make us feel any better, but there you have it.

CharlesW

It would seem that laptop battery fires have already destroyed a cargo plane earlier this year

http://tomshardware.co.uk/2006/07/13...ttery_upsfire/

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Consumer/story?id=2314891

FlightMan

There is an ever expanding list of airlines that wont allow Dell/Apple laptops/batteries ( i can't remember which ) onboard now.

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

Now I know why *Sonic* sold me his Dell laptop....


M

Markus

Koeran Air announced yesterday it's not allowing Apple/Dell laptops with battieries on board, and Virgin has also stated this. They'll allow you to use your laptop with the onboard power via the in-seat power socket, but that's no use if you're not flying business class

D.K.1

Have you checked the battery? If it's one of those that needs re calling, you will need to get in touch with Dell.

We have 2 other Dell's here too, one of them had a battery that was on the recall list, so we registered, sent it back, and got the replacement, only took about 2 weeks at the most

Simon C

DK1 your lucky, Apple are replacing my battery!!











Expected time to replacement 4 - 6 weeks!!!!! Thank god they are shipping me the replacement before I need to send them mine.


Wonder how this effects everone who uses Apples for business and flies (Mine is business critical when on the road)

Sexy Scots Lass

I have a Dell Inspiron 510m but the battery serial number does not match those listed on the Dell website. The laptop is just over a year old and therefore out of guarantee but, and this is the weird thing, the battery gave up working about a month ago. The red light flashes continually as if it has no power even when I've got the laptop plugged into the mains. If I do unplug it, the battery only lasts a very short time.

Do you think I should phone them and chance trying to get a replacement battery anyway?

D.K.1

They replaced my battery, not the laptop

Simon C

Donna, their just replacing my battery, but thats teh lead time, over a fooking month!!!!

D.K.1

That's bad, they told me 26 days but it was here within 2 weeks


Glad too, bladdy kids kept pulling the mains cable out of the back of mine, it was a nuisance !

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

Just did - it's not on the list.


M

D.K.1

Good

swiss scooby

No wonder when Dell has to recall 1.4 Million notebooks and have to use UPS delivery service. I should have gotten UPS stocks only for that matter. Man am I happy to work for HP. I know that we also have our recalls etc. but never as bad as the situation at Dell right now. The worst of it: the batteries are from Sony. I wonder how much they have to chip in.

CharlesW

It's going to cost them a packet.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/mob...9281031,00.htm

Freak

At JFK (new york) airport last night they did indeed check mine to see if it was a Dell