Botched Repair Likely Cause of Combusting iPhone After Flight 181
aesoteric writes "The combustion of an Apple iPhone 4 after a regional flight in Australia was likely caused by a botched repair of the handset by an unauthorized repairer, according to air safety investigators in the U.S. and Australia. A small metal screw had been misplaced in the battery bay of the handset. The screw punctured the battery casing and caused an internal short circuit, making the iPhone emit dense smoke (PDF)."
Waiting for facts (Score:5, Insightful)
After reading the snarky comments in the previous story about "holding it wrong", "it's an iPhone so it's a feature", and "ban all phones without removable batteries", it's interesting to see what happens if you wait for investigative facts to come out. But where would be the fun in that? Slashdot's comment section is more about cathartic bashing than insightful commentary. Of course, now we'll see accusations that Apple bribed the ATSB or fake-posts from pretend-battery-engineers telling us how the story is wrong or some other similar silliness...
Re:Waiting for facts (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Waiting for facts (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention that someone fruity could lobby for laws that outlaw third party repairs as a result...
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Why wait for facts? Ban!
Re:Waiting for facts (Score:5, Insightful)
Why wait for a law?
There are several federal agencies that can make something effectively illegal simply by editing a list, and publishing it. We had to amend the constitution of make alcohol illegal, but drugs float from schedule to schedule at the whim of the FDA. The ATF, does the same thing. Neither offer, nor will when asked, a shred of evidence behind their reasoning.
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I don't think the Founding Fathers really anticipated the level of collusion that exists between the different branches of government. The ultimate check on government power is the people not taking any of their shit, and we fucked that up pretty righteously.
If you tried to pull any of the things that government departments do on a weekly basis here 200 or so years ago there would have been a goddamned rebellion.
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Meh, only the conspiracy minded think that they would want to.
Having an iphone go up in smoke because an insufficiently trained tech botched the repair is great publicity for having your repairs done by certified repairmen.
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First off, the assembly process & quality control makes this unlikely except through sabotage. Secondly, there have been no instances of Foxconn sabotaged iPhones spontaneously combusting so its just a daydream of the apple haters.
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Not to mention that someone fruity could lobby for laws that outlaw third party repairs as a result...
Why bring homosexuality into this? Troll!
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Why bring homosexuality into this? Troll!
Yeah, it's already an Apple thread!
DOUBLE TROLL!
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why not go full conspiracy on it and say that it was a 3rd party repair by apple to ban 3rd party repairs ;).
if the stupid thing had a removable battery in the first place it wouldn't have been damaged in the repair.
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Hanlon's razor is sufficient for the original failure. I just see an opening for the corporations to capitalize on the situation.
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The fact that they allow lithium-ion batteries on board at all is rather startling from a safety perspective, considering how easy it is to make them emit smoke. In fact, you are only allowed to bring these batteries into the passenger compartment, NOT the cargo compartment, so that a flight attendant may extinguish the fire.
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Re:Waiting for facts (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in the July 2011, I built a device called the Video Coat. [cathodecorner.com]
I then went on a family vacation, which culminated in displaying the coat at the Maker Faire in Detroit. The coat traveled to Detroit packed into a suitcase, and I spent an hour assembling it in the hotel room.
I had to catch a plane just as the Faire was ending, so we quickly piled the family into the car and drove to the airport. I didn't have time to pack the coat back into its suitcase, so I carried it on my lap.
I wore the coat into the airport. Everything was fine until I arrived at the luggage check-in counter and was getting my boarding passes. Then, a Detroit cop walked up and told me that he'd had about 50 phone calls about my coat.
They asked me to please pack it into my checked luggage. I had my boarding passes at this time, so I took the time to sit down and disassemble the coat and pack it into its suitcase.
Then, the TSA had decided that my family (wife and two teenage sons) was special, so they wrote SSSS on all of our boarding passes. They nicely let us cut ahead of all the other passengers so that we could get fully scanned, groped, fondled and molested in time to catch our flight. I was enjoying this whole situation very much, since it was so surreal.
The most surreal part was when they inspected the eight big LiPo batteries [hobbyking.com] that are used to provide power to the video coat. They decided that the batteries were small enough to be allowed on the flight, and they handed all eight of them to me for me to repack into my son's backpack.
The way more ultimately surreal part was a month later, when I was at Burning Man, recharging the batteries one morning. I wasn't paying attention, and I accidentally plugged one battery into another battery instead of plugging it into the charger. There was a brilliant white light as the contacts started arcing against each other. I quickly unplugged the batteries and regained my composure.
Since this battery is designed to provide 100 Amperes continuous current in normal use, one can only imagine what the short-circuit current capability is. The manufacturer doesn't provide any safety fuses or shutoff circuits in the packs. It's safe to assume that two of these batteries plugged into each other would catch fire in about 10 seconds.
Imagine if I had plugged two batteries into each other on an airplane! I had enough incendiary material on hand to start four fine lithium fires on that aircraft, not that I would want to do anything remotely like that. I really don't know what the flight crew would have done about that situation. It definitely would make headlines.
So can you please tell me why you think that the TSA allows incendiary devices to be carried on board, but not bottled water?
Bruce's reply? "Because there was an uncovered liquid plot, but no documented battery plot."
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Re:Waiting for facts (Score:5, Funny)
That's not the worst of it. The real outcome is that TSA will now ban all electronic devices as deadly terrorist weapons.
Obligatory: http://xkcd.com/651/ [xkcd.com]
Re:Waiting for facts (Score:5, Informative)
Not to worry. They're far too busy feeling up 3-year olds and grannies to do anything about deadly weapons of any sort.
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TSA
T ouching
S omeone's
A ss
24/7
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I've been through Ben Gurion a few times (I'm Israli-born and still have an Israeli passport). They may certainly assume that, but -- given that I was traveling at the time with a portable DVD player, additional battery, two power adapters, a cellphone, and an iPod, I can assure you it is in no way banned.
Re:Waiting for facts (Score:5, Funny)
The facts don't really matter, "You're holding it wrong" is still relevant and funny.
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Especially still relevant since Nintendo has adopted the same rationale toward the horrible hand-numbing controls of a recent game.
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Indeed. The "hand" which is an instrument the vast majority of us are born with have a known range of sizes, functionalities and physical properties. It is known how the hand is used when interacting with other objects. So when the design of an object is not completely suitable for comfortable use by a hand, then you have to blame the design of the object not the hand since we all know the ubiquitous hand came long, long before and will persist long, long after.
It's immeasurably arrogant to think your de
Re:Waiting for facts (Score:4, Funny)
I used to hold it wrong ... Till I took an arrow to the knee.
Sorry.
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In Soviet Russia, Oog the open-source caveman holds you wrong, in all caps. I think that about covers it
Not sorry.
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I know you hear "You're holding it wrong" from your boyfriend all the time, but the joke, and any sort of brand bashing is tired.
It's only tired if you belong to the order of the Jobsian monks. Patiently waiting, cash and credit, upon the drops of technological dew that drops from Apple. To the rest of us, including non-devotees who have an apple product, it's still pretty funny. =D
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In general, I'd agree with you, but I saw "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel", and it was funny/entertaining, even though a bunch of the jokes were very old (e.g. "I don't even buy green bananas", "if she dies, she dies"). It was a free screening though, so I was probably easier on the old jokes than I would have been otherwise.
Re:Waiting for facts (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems to vindicate the "ban all phones without removable batteries" position, though. If the batteries were designed to be replaced by the end user, this wouldn't have happened.
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Battery and screen (Score:2, Informative)
No, it DOES make sense.
A user replaceable battery is in a separate compartment as the rest of the electronics (you only need to remove a back cover, which reveals a battery compartment. You don't need to disassemble the whole electronics to change the battery). The point is to avoid the end-user messing with other non replaceable parts when playing with the battery. But in that way, the battery is also isolated from the rest of the phone, thus a botched screen repair isn't very likely to let a loose screw g
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If you want to play "what if," then in some other case, if someone has a phone with a replaceable battery, there's also a much greater chance that they would carry a spare, and have that get shorted out or punctured. Or have a screw left loose inside after a repair, ready to cause a short, with similar results.
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I simply concur with this. For a wide variety of reasons, the move to make the battery not replaceable was an act of pure selfishness on the part of the designer. I'm not going to blame only Apple for this, but any electronic device maker who is guilty of this behavior. Apple was NOT the first to commit this sin. Among the many things I have owned with a Sony label on them, I owned a Sony Clie' when PalmOS was a fun and useful thing to have. It was a superior device with vivid color, expandable storage
Re:Waiting for facts (Score:5, Insightful)
Just to add a counter-factual point to your anecdote, I recall some time ago being in the market for a music player. the iPods at the time were white, second or third gen I guess, and of course the non-replaceable battery issue was as live then as it seems to be now. So I shopped around, and bought an iRiver. nice player, good capacity, user-serviceable battery.
3 years or so later, when the time came around to replace the battery, I went online to order a replacement only to find that the battery I needed, with a specific shape and plug, had been discontinued, and there was no way I could get a new one, branded or after-market.
Since then, I haven't been fussed about the non-replaceable battery issue, really.
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My Archos Jukebox might have been bulky and an unfashionable colour, but it ran on AA cells. You don't get much more replaceable than that.
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True that. The store I worked at didn't sell Archos, or I might have bought one of those instead.
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What would a smart phone look like that ran on AA batteries?
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Something like the Nokia 9210 Communicator?
But then there is such a thing as a tripleA battery ...
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This. I have a couple of camera's that are now useless for the same reason - I can't find replacements for their custom batteries anymore.
The problem is less one of "user replaceable batteries" than it is of "unique batteries". OTOH, with battery technology evolving as fast as it is... I'm not sure there's a clear fix for the problem.
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Sure there is. Don't buy anything that uses unique batteries or proprietary storage media.
Use the free market, instead of being abused by it.
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Point of order - I can replace the battery on my Galaxy Nexus - which is thinner than an iPhone 4 without any tools - and thus no risk to puncturing the battery.
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Thinner by 0.36mm, true.
But the iPhone 4S lasts far longer than the Nexus in web browsing and video playback [gsmarena.com], though it loses in talk time.
This despite the Nexus having a 22% higher battery capacity:
Nexus: 1750 mAh
iPhone 4S: 1432 mAh
Obviously the larger screen and pixel count account for the poor web and video test results, so the user has to decide if the tradeoff is worth it for them.
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A brilliant first post. I wish others would do that. Unfortunately, though it gave me cause to pause and think before reacting, I still arrived at the conclusion that "non-removable batteries are a bad idea" not just because Apple did it, but because others have tried it before Apple did. That practice killed the Sony Clie'. It hasn't killed iPhone yet because people replace their iPhones with other newer iPhones before the battery goes bad most of the time and others don't yet mind being enslaved to Ap
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Slashdot's comment section is more about cathartic bashing than insightful commentary.p>
You are reading it wrong. :P
Five sided screws (Score:5, Funny)
The report says the shop that performed the repair was not an authorized Apple repair shop, and shows the device as having the old, dangerous standard Philips screws. Now we know why Apple has been so adamant about switching from regular Philips screws to five-sided screws--with the five sided, tamper-resistant screws, there is no chance that an unauthorized repair facility would be able to create an explosive condition by leaving a screw inside the iPhone.
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Shit, better hide this [amazon.com] from unauthorized repair facilities!
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An authorized facility has gone through the process to get authorized (though I don't know what that entails), so it carries the expectation that they'll follow the procedure to not run a screw through a battery.
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Interesting you should use that analogy, given the reputation of car mechanics when I was growing up for being shady places whose work you'd often want double-checked... Nowadays, almost all mechanics shops are certified by various industry groups [wikipedia.org], and the ones that aren't go out of business real quick.
Computers (and especially mobile devices) are still magic boxes to most people (as cars used to be), so outside of the Slashdot crowd, fly-by-night repair shops are a common resource for repairs. Anyone bold
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WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH
Re:Five sided screws (Score:5, Informative)
There aren't any easy sources. iFixit had to specially comission a build - they CNC cut their own pentalobe screws. Their cheaper kits use a star screwdriver that improperly fits, but since it's a single use item, it's not a big deal (and it'll leave marks on the screw that a proper screwdriver won't). They reluctantly sell these things to the public.
Basically, if someone is willing to go through the trouble of sourcing a screwdriver and paying $30 for it (plus shipping), it's already a one up from someone who'll just take a knife to unscrew it (yes, I've seen that happen).
It's basically one of those "if you're doing this, you probalby know what you're doing" intelligence tests. A 5 lobe screwdriver is pretty hard to find to begin with, and those that'll go through the effort of procuring one, well, probably have the skills and know-how to do it.
If you're going to places like iFixit to get tools to repair stuff, that's already a huge step up in the skills game. Sure a skilled repairman could make the same mistake, but they're also far more attentive and if they're missing a screw or have parts left over, will probably investigate. There I Fixed It [failblog.org] has some stunning examples of what people can do. (Unfortunately, it also contains some smart fixes as well, but the older entries are more interesting).
Re:Five sided screws (Score:4, Informative)
What trouble in sourcing a screwdriver? You can buy one here [amazon.com] for $5. And there are others that are easily found with 5 seconds of Amazon searching.
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If going to Amazon and typing "iPhone screwdriver" is what you consider a "pretty hard" thing to do, that says more about your intelligence not those of others.
trueism. (Score:3)
I guess the old saying 'don't let the smoke out' is true.
How do they know it's 'unauthorized'? (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder, and so what?
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I worked for a small PC repair shop that became authorized by Apple to perform repairs. The person repairing the Macs had to take a lengthy test to ensure they were competent in Apple product repair. We then became an Apple authorized repair center and would receive pre-paid shipping boxes with the replacement parts to send the old parts free of charge. We also got a significant reimbursement for time spent performing the repairs.
That is what they mean by 'authorized', either an official Apple store or a
Batteries becoming as dangerous as tanks (Score:3)
With the amount of energy they are squeezing into modern batteries, they are becoming almost as dangerous as a small diesel tank inside your phone or laptop. A random short can lead to a sudden release of all that trapped energy.
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Except that they don't explode, they burn. Lots of energy, but it can't be released fast enough to actually "explode". While the same is true of liquid fuels, if you can vaporize or aerosolize those fuels, they can become explosive. See "internal combustion engine" or "fuel-air bomb" for examples. They can be dangerous, but they're not as dangerous as a fuel tank can be.
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Simply place some nice accelerant, or substance that releases lethal gas when burned, in the battery, make it look like a factory battery and you have nice attack vector the idiots at the TSA should have eliminated 10 years ago.
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Yeah that's why I said diesel tank. They don't explode, but instead burn like a battery.
First rule of any tech repair (Score:5, Insightful)
First rule of any tech repair, 'authorized' or not:
1. Always have a method to account for every screw and part removed!
I'm not authorized to service my own laptops, one of them has been disassembled literally dozens of times, and yet this scenario is very unlikely to happen to me. I have sets of interlocking parts compartments that I have labelled specifically for teardowns of each laptop; the screws are grouped by progressive steps or layers of the teardown, and further by size in some instances. This is critical even for someone performing the same teardown every day, as no one is perfect, but it's especially critical for those first or one-time teardowns.
This screw got misplaced not because the guy was 'unauthorized' but rather because he was careless and foolish. Just because a person is indeed authorized (or degreed) is no exemption from carelessness and foolishness.
Re:First rule of any tech repair (Score:4, Insightful)
First rule of any tech repair, 'authorized' or not:
1. Always have a method to account for every screw and part removed!
I'm not authorized to service my own laptops, one of them has been disassembled literally dozens of times, and yet this scenario is very unlikely to happen to me. I have sets of interlocking parts compartments that I have labelled specifically for teardowns of each laptop; the screws are grouped by progressive steps or layers of the teardown, and further by size in some instances. This is critical even for someone performing the same teardown every day, as no one is perfect, but it's especially critical for those first or one-time teardowns.
This screw got misplaced not because the guy was 'unauthorized' but rather because he was careless and foolish. Just because a person is indeed authorized (or degreed) is no exemption from carelessness and foolishness.
Little plastic compartments?
In my day we used an egg carton.
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In my day we used an egg carton.
A piece of masking tape on the benchtop, sticky side up.
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... AND then other pieces sticky side down, to label the contents of the pieces sticky side up? And if your elbow gets a mind of its own...? No thanks! I'll stick with my labelled locking compartments [meritline.com]!
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That'll work! I once used them in a pinch to organize my mineral collection. Ain't nuthin' wrong with repurposing whatcha already got; I just happened to acquire something a bit more specialized [meritline.com].
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Your elbow could lay waste to your plan. My elbow has no effect on mine!
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Second rule of tech repair (Score:3)
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My work violates that second rule of yours. Sorry!
Fair enough. I probably should have titled it "alternate rule" instead of "second rule". While I commend you for your rigor in disassembly and reassembly, I suspect that most folks don't and end up falling into the "parts left over" camp. In this case, my rule gets to apply.
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I usually take a picture of the device (several if there are "layers" to the disassembly) and print it off.
Then I poke the screws into the picture in the same place as they were removed from the laptop/phone.
That way, I not only keep track of how many screws I have, but at which stage and location they go back into the device. Result=no forgotten/lost screws, and a good template for the next time I have to disassemble.
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Not bad, but I'd worry about the screws dislodging from the sheets, etc. I like my labelled locking compartments because they can fall off the desk and no harm done (*if* I keep them closed, which I do). I like the way your method combines a visual workflow with parts storage, though.
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Not bad, but I'd worry about the screws dislodging from the sheets, etc
If they're really tiny, I often tape them in place. If the head is big enough, they usually stick fine just poking into the page.
IIRC, I taped them for the last iPhone I opened up, but laptop screws were a bit bigger and didn't need tape.
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Buy a bunch of something like these [meritline.com], group bunches together specific to the process for each model you need to tear down regularly, and keep a bunch for ad hoc projects. Use a thermal labeler to make little labels for each compartment describing the contents, including the number that should be present. I use my own shorthand to fit the necessary info on each little label. Connect the compartments linearly or laterally in the order they will be used, and you can't go wrong.
battery compartment design (Score:5, Funny)
This also re-opens the argument that if Apple made the battery replaceable in the first place, then you wouldn't have to damage the phone to replace the battery.
A sensible follow up (Score:3)
exploding iphone (Score:4, Funny)
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I'm just waiting for Sony to file a patent lawsuit over this.
stripped threads (Score:3)
When I tear down small devices/laptops I occasionally find a loose screw in there because the threads stripped. This is especially true of portable devices which get a good bit of jostling, and usually around the battery, which swells and shrinks.
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Old football injury? (Score:2)
Hey, I just had an epiphany: maybe this unauthorised service tech was the victim of too much football in his youth [slashdot.org]?
Authorized/unauthorized repairer (Score:2)
Why the emphasis on "unauthorized repairer"? If I become an Apple "genius", does that mean all screws automatically go in their right spots? Am I immune to mistakes?
Authorized/unauthorized repairers (Score:2)
The ATSB said the incident highlighted the dangers of using unauthorised repairers.
And this also should highlight manufacturers trying to restrict the scope of authorized repairers.
Words mean things (Score:2)
"Authorized" and "Competent" are two completely different words, with completely different meanings. I want my electronics repaired by a "competent" repairer. I don't give a flip if they are "authorized."
So (Score:2)
In-flight incident caused by an Apple user with a screw loose.
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Yeah, but if an airplane mechanic botches a repair job on a plane, he loses his license or gets a huge fine, and can be sued for a lot of money if there are injuries or damages. An iPhone mechanic has no license, can't be fined, and if you wanted to take it to court, you wouldn't get much more than the value of the phone (much more and this shady company would just go bankrupt and not pay)
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What are you talking about? I'm agreeing with you. Your original post was about the plane itself, which is a different beast since there's liabilities for mechanics. I don't know why you brought them into it.
As stupid as the GGP's comment was, I don't think it was about the device itself. The article he linked was talking about using them to replace paper charts.
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Should they ban pilots using airplanes?
It is a statistical fact that 99.9% of all airplane accidents, fatal or non-fatal, involve a pilot. So, yes. We'd save lots of lives is we banned pilots from airplaines.
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yep...laptops more like 50-100 Wh (Score:2)
A Chevy Volt battery pack is 16KWh.