The Transportation Safety Board yesterday said it would not investigate a fire on a Scoot Airlines flight to Singapore that was reportedly caused by a portable charger in a passenger’s carry-on luggage, as it does not qualify as a major transportation incident.
The incident occurred at 7:47pm on Tuesday, when Scoot Airlines Flight TR993 was waiting to take off from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, the board said in a statement.
There were 187 passengers on the flight, as well as two pilots and four cabin crew members, the board said.
Photo: CNA
When the aircraft was waiting on Runway 05R for liftoff, a passenger’s portable power charger caught fire, the board said.
“The aircraft taxied back [to the gate] after cabin crew members extinguished the fire,” it said. “One passenger sustained minor burns.”
The board dispatched two investigators to the airport to interview the injured passenger, pilots and cabin crew members, it said, adding that they took the charger and recordings from the aircraft’s flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder back to the board’s office.
The board convened at 10:30am yesterday to determine whether the incident should be investigated, it said.
“Based on the Transportation Occurrences Investigation Act (運輸事故調查法) and International Civil Aviation Organization [ICAO] standards, we have determined that it was not a major transportation incident and does not fall under our scope of oversight,” the board said. “We will turn the collected information to the Singaporean Air Accident Investigation Bureau.”
The ICAO and International Air Transport Association stipulate that lithium batteries with less than 100 watt-hours (wh) can be carried on board, the Civil Aeronautics Administration said.
Under special permissions from airlines, cabin crew members and passengers can carry two batteries with up to 160wh, the agency added.
Laptops, tablet computers, smartphones and portable power chargers are generally equipped with lithium batteries with less than 100wh and are allowed to be carried on board in the passenger’s hand luggage.
They must not be placed in checked luggage, the agency said.
To prevent safety hazards caused by lithium batteries, passengers should avoid dropping, crushing or puncturing them, the agency said.
They should stop using them if they are damaged, it added.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
An orange gas cloud that leaked from a waste management plant yesterday morning in Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音) was likely caused by acidic waste, authorities said, adding that it posed no immediate harm. The leak occurred at a plant in the district’s Environmental Science and Technology Park at about 7am, the Taoyuan Fire Department said. Firefighters discovered a cloud of unidentified orange gas leaking from a waste tank when they arrived on the site, it said, adding that they put on Level A chemical protection before entering the building. After finding there was no continuous leak, the department worked with the city’s Department
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
RSS