Airline cabin crews should be required to undergo robust training in fighting in-flight fires, particularly given the growing number of lithium-metal- and lithium-ion-powered personal electronic devices (PEDs) being brought on board commercial air transport aircraft by passengers and crewmembers, according to U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairman Christopher A. Hart.
“Along with all of their other duties, cabin crewmembers are on-call firefighters. They are the airplane’s first line of defense if an on-board fire occurs,” Hart said May 6 in a keynote address to the second annual IATA (International Air Transport Association) Cabin Operations Safety Conference in Paris. “In the age of portable electronic devices [PEDs], virtually every passenger comes on board carrying a potential source of a fire or smoke event; that is, the lithium and lithium-ion batteries that power their devices,” said Hart, who, among other topics, also stressed the need for effect…
