Industrial Energy Products Offers Fire-containment Solution

Although in-flight fires originating in personal electronic devices are relatively rare, they often attract a good deal of attention and motivate operators to be prepared for the possibility. With that in mind, Industrial Energy Products (IEP) has been offering a growing array of fire-containment bags to the business aviation industry since 2009.

Intended to protect aircraft and passengers from the threat of possible thermal runaway incidents arising from malfunctions in the battery packs of rechargeable personal electronic devices, IEP’s “Hot-Stop L Fire Containment Bags” come in several sizes: laptop, tablet and cellphone (two sizes). The Pennsylvania-based company has sold approximately 1,000 of the bags since the start of production. According to IEP president Thomas Connelly, Jr., the bags use specialized materials engineered to withstand temperatures of 3,200 degrees F on the inside and more than 2,000 degrees F on the outside. “It is pretty substantial,” Connelly told AIN. “On the inside we’ve got two layers of our aluminized Hot-Stop L [fabric] and between those layers we have a 3,200-degree felt as a fire blocker.”

The company created the bag in response to an airline request. During testing researchers at the FAA’s Atlantic City (N.J.) technical center induced a lithium ion battery fire in a laptop computer and quickly sealed it in the bag. “It looked like a blowfish jumping off the ground,” recalled Connelly. “When you get an explosion the bag actually expands and lifts off the ground a little bit.”

While the FAA suggests dousing an overheated device with water, Connelly doesn’t believe that is as effective a solution as using his containment bag. “Every time [researchers] poured water on [a runaway device], it cooled momentarily but the batteries reignited,” he said. In addition, that tactic assigns to flight crewmembers the responsibility for determining when and if a passenger’s device might ignite and when to pour that water. “That’s a tough situation to put someone in,” said Connelly. “Do you want to trash your boss’s computer because you think it’s running hot? It has always been our contention that if [a device is] showing even the slightest indication that it’s running really hot or smoking, put it in our bags. If it explodes, then it’s contained. If it doesn’t, you land and hand the computer back to the customer.” Since many of the overheating incidents have occurred during charging, the company suggests that the devices be kept in the bags while charging on board the aircraft.

The computer- and tablet-size bags come with a pair of fireproof gloves and retail for $1,075 and $950, respectively. The smallest cellphone bag sells for $235. While it uses the same rugged construction as its larger siblings, the phone bag also offers another safety benefit: eliminating in-flight distractions due to texting. “Just like people on the interstate or back roads fooling with their cellphones, pilots are having the same problem,” asserted Connelly. Devices that are placed within the bag cannot receive or send signals, so he suggests that the flight crew stow their phones in the bags at the beginning of the flight for added security. The company is also moving into a line of custom fire-proof covers for defibrillators to protect those devices against uncontrollable ignition.

The company recently named Fort Worth, Texas-based Baker Aviation as the new exclusive distributor, and Connelly is offering a free replacement program. If an aviation customer deploys one of his bags in an emergency to contain an actual thermal runaway fire and notifies the company, it will replace the bag free of charge. The bag would be able to contain another fire, noted Connelly, but it would likely be permeated with the odor of burnt plastic, a smell that would be quite noticeable in the cabin of a business jet.