Malaysia Airlines MH370 (Photo : Reuters)
On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 caught fire, starting off in the cargo hold and eventually overwhelming the commercial plane before plunging down the Indian Ocean. What could have sparked the aerial inferno? According to an aviation expert, the likely culprit is 440 pounds of lithium-ion battery.
Authorities have confirmed that MH370 was transporting pallets of Motorola batteries that aviation specialist Clive Irving said could have caused the tragic end of the aircraft. If exposed to intense heat, lithium battery could explode and set off fire. In the context of a mid-air flight, battery on fire is doubly disastrous, Irving said in an article published by The Daily Beast.
The same ubiquitous power brick that fires up mobile devices and laptops has been labelled as "unacceptable fire hazards," in large amounts during flight by Boeing, Irving wrote. Flight 370 is a Boeing 777 and its maker takes pride on its supposed robustness and top-notch safety features.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Security or FAA also issued warnings that ferrying bulk shipments of lithium batteries poses "immediate and urgent risks." The agency added that the material is indeed a fire hazard that is "capable of destroying a plane."
It was clear that MH370, with the batteries on board, was a disaster waiting to happen, Irving said and his take makes more sense compared to the dozens of conspiracy theories that have surfaced since the aircraft disappeared, Business Insider said.
While Irving noted that the Boeing 777 was designed with a fire-suppression system on its cargo hold, it proved insufficient for the intense fire that the exploding lithium batteries have triggered. MH370 did not explode mid-air because of the fire. What proved deadly is the fume that the blaze had generated and seeped through the cockpit and cabin areas.
Quoting an expert, Irving wrote that the fumes carried fluorine and arsenic - by-products of burnt lithium - that when inhaled by humans are deadly. It was likely that the leaking fumes from the cargo area rendered all persons aboard the Flight 370 unconscious, which would have explained why the plane hit the open seas.
The report also offered explanations why MH370 deviated from its projected course - last ditch attempt by the pilot to land the plane safely after the cargo fire was detected. Flight 370 also wandered off the south region of the Indian Ocean as its apparatus started malfunctioning, caused too by the fire.
Irving theorized too that the mid-flight blaze, which most likely was concentrated near the plane's "electronics nerve center," destroyed the Boeing 777's communication equipment but not its engines. The former allowed the MH370 to continue flying - all aboard likely passed out or dead due to the fumes-filled cockpit and cabin area - until it ran out of fuel while the latter cut off all contacts and the plane was never heard from since then.
