According to aviation officials familiar with the decision, a United Nations team suggested banning passenger aircraft from shipping rechargeable lithium batteries, which could cause fires that could destroy the aircraft.
The aviation navigation board of the International Civil Aviation Organization is the highest technical body of the agency, which also proposes to lift the ban if new packaging can be developed to provide an acceptable level of safety.
Final approval of ICAO top-
The first-level council is still needed.
The council is scheduled to discuss the matter at the end of February. Lithium-
From mobile phones and laptops to hybrid and all-electric cars.
Most of them are transported on cargo ships, but they are about by air.
Tests by the Federal Aviation Administration indicate that a damaged or defective battery may experience an uncontrolled temperature rise called Heat runaway.
Overheating can spread throughout the shipping process.
It is not uncommon for tens of thousands of batteries to be transported in a container in the belly of the aircraft.
In a test by the FAA, overheated batteries release explosive gases that, when ignited, have blown away the doors on the cargo container and before being swallowed up by flames
Engineers at the FAA Technical Center said at a public meeting last fall (North) that the explosion was powerful enough to knock off the interior panels on the wall of the cargo hold.
They said it would allow halon, the fire extinguishing agent used on the aircraft, to escape without leaving anything to prevent the fire from spreading.
Aviation safety experts believe that at least three cargo planes have been destroyed by a lithium battery fire since 2006.
Four pilots were killed in the accident.