Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Li battery fire crashed MH 370 ?

metalresearcher - 27-3-2014 at 00:16

On CNN I found an interesting article:

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/25/opinion/adcock-flight-370-...

which appears rather plausible for me. Particularly Li metal batteries (Energizer Lithium) can release lots of energy when shorted and causing a fire hard to extinguish (when lots of batteries are loaded, not two penlites in a passenger's checked baggage).
Or oxidizing stuff e.g. mislabeled oxygen cilinders or chlorine or even ClF3 ?
A heavy fire can incapacitate pilots resulting in a 'fuel runout' flight finally crashing into the southern Indian Ocean.

phlogiston - 27-3-2014 at 04:52

I'm sure as they start digging into this case more and more possible possible causes and strange coincidences will be discovered, but until real data is recovered (flight recorders, remains of the plane) it will just remain pure speculation.

[Edited on 27-3-2014 by phlogiston]

TheChemiKid - 27-3-2014 at 07:01

It is a possibility that the lithium batteries caught fire, but shorting them generally doen't cause a fire. You may be confusing lithium and lithium-polymer batteries.

blogfast25 - 27-3-2014 at 09:23

CNN (LOL). 'Hello' would be more reliable...

Metacelsus - 27-3-2014 at 14:23

Remember, the point of the media is to attract attention and make money.

AJKOER - 29-3-2014 at 08:53

OK, there is no functioning Black Box anymore. It records over itself after a relatively short time. There was a proposal (discussed on CNN) to transmit flight data to the 'cloud' (the same place where your computer files are reputedly backed up to). However, as it was going to cost the airlines around $1,600 a month per plane, it was eventually rejected. My rough calc is it translates to an added dollar or less for each passenger ticket sold per month.

Why did I suspect the airlines are regulating themselves?

By the way, because of the lack data, many countries contributed millions of dollars to the search effort (so that the airlines can continue to do business as usual). Interestingly, greed, incompetent and poor regulatory oversight are barely being discussed as of yet.
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On the chemistry, I agree that a fire is a good guess. My reasoning is that a large fire is not needed, just a smokey fire burning plastic. In a small room with time, the generated HCN fumes are likely fatal with no possibility of exiting to fresh air. With a larger fire, add CO2, CO and a depletion of oxygen. Also, the reported rapid change in altitude may have been an attempt to release the O2 mask, but even if successful, there is but a limited quantity of chemical produced O2. Also, the partial loss in electric power from human intervention, may have been a futile attempt to address/diminish an electrical fire. In addition, erroneous attempts to extinguish an electrical fire with water could have produced flammable hydrogen together with oxygen, aggravating the situation (perhaps seriously, as the lower explosive limit of H2 in air is just 4%).

Not a good story, the relativities are better off not knowing the details of such a scenario. May they rest in peace.

[Edited on 29-3-2014 by AJKOER]

Chemosynthesis - 30-3-2014 at 07:06

Quote: Originally posted by AJKOER  

Why did I suspect the airlines are regulating themselves?

By the way, because of the lack data, many countries contributed millions of dollars to the search effort (so that the airlines can continue to do business as usual). Interestingly, greed, incompetent and poor regulatory oversight are barely being discussed as of yet.
[Edited on 29-3-2014 by AJKOER]

In this instance, the airline was majority government owned, and given any open bidding contract process awarding funding to what amounts to the lowest bidder, I wouldn't blame private entities for economizing as well. These types of event are so rare, the planes already built and depreciating, that money and maintenance opportunity cost are probably considered better spent elsewhere.

Now, you want to talk baggage fees, and I'm right there with you.

I did not get any specificity from my friend due to confidentiality agreements, but he has a pretty advanced avionics education and background, and he was of the opinion that a fire was unlikely due to redundancy of reporting mechanisms with the engines and "stuff."