News UK follows US in banning larger electronics from selected flights

They are concerned that only those 6 countrys might use a laptop(battery) to set fire to a plane? Is that it? I must admit it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to me. Maybe the amount of explosives you could fit in a tablet or such is enough to cause a problem, but a smartphone is too small? But even then..why just 6 countrys? Terrorists can get a plane from any country.

Am I missing something?

 

At a guess could it be because the security at airports in those countries isn't up to snuff?

 

But, you are still allowed to carry-on the actual batteries (nowhere does it say that you cant), so that point is moot.

 

IDK what needs to be done to battery to make it go bang with sufficient force but I'd imagine it involves doing something to it that would be noticeable, whereas a battery inside something like an ipad could easily be overlooked unless you opened it up or scanned it.

 

All electronics are x-rayed regardless.
For battery to catch fire you need to either damage it physically or short it. And imo, dodgy Chinese battery pack is a much bigger risk than anything listed in that ban, yet is totally allowed.

 

How would the notoriously underpaid and undertrained airport staff be able to tell the difference between a good and bad battery?

In other words, banning low quality batteries from flights isn't even remotely feasible without banning all batteries.

 

And already the ban has been found to have holes large enough to drive a tank through...

But don't worry, they're not ruling out applying the ban to all flights... linky.

 

Clearly they have some info they aren't sharing that makes them decide this, and I'm not sure it's simply a fear for a bomb in the device. But then again, they have done some daft things in the past

Maybe the idea is to have certain computers out of the owner's hands so they can install hacks while it's supposedly being put into the cargo hold, it could be anything really. But I would not trust any device anymore once it had gone through the process.