And the event taking place on an airplane is close enough to the nightmare scenario of catching fire during a flight that it will be firmly placed into the public consciousness.

I flew Emirates last week, and the preflight announcement about electronic devices said use of all devices was ok, except Galaxy Note 7 which need to stay turned off during the whole flight. I can't imagine much worse PR, when yoir products are routinely called out by neutral third parties for being an actual hazard source.

It was also mentioned on my recent flights in the USA and Europe on various OW airlines as well. Heck even in pre-boarding announcements at the gates. Really not the publicity you want.

I've flown 25k miles in the last three weeks across 5 countries.

Every airline mentioned this. American, Japan Airlines, Dragonair, Cathay Pacific, Etihad, JetBlue and Southwest.

Do you mind if I inquire what your career is? I would love a technology-related job that allows me to travel like that.

Just travel. Focusing on travel-related jobs is not a great goal. Focus on highly rewarding work, and pay your fares.

I second this. Work trips are very different from personal travel, and much less fun than people assume. A well paying job with generous vacation time (real vacation, not "available via email" vacations) is better, in my opinion.

I had a job that involved a lot of travel back in the day. I worked for a telecoms installing unix workstations and oracle servers for planning radio networks (calculating signal strength per frequency over terrain and subscriber maps). I loved it, but it's not for everyone. Long periods on your own, sometimes in locked-down societies like Saudi Arabia. I ended up playing a _lot_ of Civilization 2. Still I got to go to Tanzania, South Africa, Bangladesh, Japan and lots of countries in Europe and the Middle East and occasionally got to do sight seeing at weekends. Not so great once you're married with kids.

Most of that was vacation followed by a week of domestic work travel when I got back.

It’s the same thing in Europe, Lufthansa, Easyjet, …

I did not hear it on my last four flights across Europe with Lufthansa last week.

Hm … I flew pretty much exactly two weeks ago in a couple Airbus A320 every damn airline seems to use to fly across Europe (I flew e.g. Amsterdam to Frankfurt). I wonder if that’s a recent change (to no longer mention the Note) or they just say it on certain flights (which to me would make little sense).

I wonder if it's too late to short Samsung.

Pun intended?

probably not too late, seeing as an investor suggesting a re-org caused stock to go up on the same day this issue was announced.

I bet acquisition department is on fire.

And this thing was supposedly off when it started smoking:

"Green said that he had powered down the phone as requested by the flight crew and put it in his pocket when it began smoking."

What's the remedy here? All Galaxy Notes in the airtight metal box until we land?

Removable batteries. A quaint little feature we've had since the first 'portable' brick phones. No one needs a device to be razor thin.

If the phone was powered down, it looks like this might be a chemical reaction in the batteries. Taking it out might just remove barriers between the source of combustion and flamables in the environment.

First I'm surprised Al Queda doesn't use a special OS or a virus to make phones explode on a plane. Second, it could be competitors who specifically target the Note 7 with a 0-day attack to harm Samsung's reputation.

All phones with a battery are a fire hazard if they get the wrong OS.

The battery itself has a controller to prevent overcharging. I very much doubt the OS can override that.

This is dangerously wrong.

True, all airlines I used last week had such a warning, to turn it off for the whole time on board of the airplane, even while still on ground.

One of the airlines last week shorted the warning to "Samsung 7 phone".

Bad PR for Samsung.

I can confirm flydubai and indigo have also said the warning, maybe ICAO recommended it?

Wow that's amazing. I'd love to hear a recording of that.

You can already use it as a grenade/bomb in GTA 5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55Vaj33RYkI

That's the funniest thing I've seen all day.

So are Li-ion battery fires considered metal fires - if so, the instinctual reaction (apply water to extinguish) would be unfortunate...

Probably lithium polymer but yeah: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yD_Eal1_5NI

My RC aircraft group has a 55 gallon drum with salt water at our flying field. RC aircraft pretty much exclusively use lithium polymer packs, sometimes 2 the size of bricks in larger models / big helis. If a lipo starts smoking, you chuck it in the salt water and it shorts it out + cools it down. The reaction when they short internally (such as when they malfunction or get damaged e.g. When a heli crashes and smashes the pack -- they're not super rigid) is more thermite than dynamite, but it can still burn through things like flying tin can aircraft.

Here's what happens when you overcharge a few on purpose and beat them with a stick: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=coX0SwubG4A

Typically there's quite a bit of warning in the form of smoke first. Not sure if the chemistry in the Samsung batteries but they're likely lithium polymer. There are tons of different chemistries though: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/types_of_lithium_...

I thought LiFePO4 was common in RC circles? Or only for ground vehicles, or already outdated knowledge?

They aren't as high capacity (per cost/weight/volume) as LiPoly, so they aren't as common. Flying vehicles even less so as they are more sensitive to power/weight ratios.

Lithium ion batteries do not contain significant amounts of elemental Lithium.

But water can react with the electrolyte used in many Li-ion cells to form hydrofluoric acid.

A switched off phone. Now airlines need to ban all Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones. This hurts.

This isn't their only appliance that has been catching fires. There are several washing machines in Australia, made by Samsung, that have caused house fires.

Source?

Here you go, AU gov notice:

https://www.productsafety.gov.au/recall/samsung-samsung-top-...

Dunno about Australia, but this was about washing machines in the US: http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/28/news/samsung-cpsc-washing-ma...