Lithium batteries involved in cockpit fire on UPS plane

Lithium batteries are believed to have contributed to the cockpit fire that broke out in the UPS plane that crashed in Dubai earlier this month, crash investigation sources have said.

The news is likely to lead to new restrictions on their transport and packaging are likely to be introduced by US authorities, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.

US investigators are currently analysing the cause of the crash and have yet to reveal their findings. However, sources told the paper that lithium batteries may have stoked the intense fire and dense smoke that filled the cockpit of the UPS Boeing 747 aircraft, which crashed in Dubai on September 3 and killed both pilots onboard.

The report added that the implications are likely to result in US officials introducing new measures to restrict the transport of large quantities of lithium batteries on US cargo planes. Sources told the WSJ that the UPS plane, which originated in Hong Kong and was flying from Dubai to Germany, had large amounts of consumer electronics aboard.

The new US restrictions, likely to be announced after the results of the crash investigation, are believed to include new guidelines for the packaging of lithium batteries and new limits on the transport of batteries and consumer goods.

Lithium batteries are used extensively to power electronic goods, such as mobile phones and laptop computers. The consumer electronics market in the GCC is a booming business and is expected to be worth around $11.2bn by the end of this year and grow by a quarter over the next four years, according to predictions by researchers at Business Monitor International.

The Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) from the aircraft was recovered from the crash site on September 4, approximately six hours after the accident and the Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR) was recovered on September 7 “in a reasonable condition,” the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) said.

The two recorders were then sent to the US for analysis, along with one UAE investigator, to work on data recovery, the GCAA said in a statement on September 13.

“The investigation team is led by the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), and comprises of 20 experts from GCAA and from the USA National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Boeing, FAA and UPS, who arrived to Dubai on September 5 to assist in investigation as requested by UAE,” the GCAA added.

The US Department of Transportation spokeswoman, the US Federal Aviation Administration and UPS all declined to comment in the WSJ report.