Proposed Penalty for Battery Shipments
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has proposed a $1.1 million civil penalty against a firm that it alleges violated requirements for shipping lithium batteries — the largest penalty ever proposed for alleged mishandling of lithium batteries.
The FAA says that Braille Battery of Sarasota, Florida, violated hazardous materials regulations on June 1, 2016, when it offered four shipments to FedEx — each one containing a 24-volt lithium ion battery.
“One of the batteries apparently caught fire while it was being transported on a FedEx truck, after it had been transported on an aircraft,” the FAA said, adding that the truck was destroyed.
In a December announcement, the FAA said that the batteries “did not meet testing standards, …
