Nataly
On Monday the Department of Transportation announced that under a new federal rule, airline passengers and crew members will no longer be able to pack battery-powered portable electronic smoking devices such as e-cigarettes, e-cigars, e-pipes, personal vaporizers and any sort of electronic nicotine delivery system, in checked luggage, Joinfo.ua reports with the reference to CNBC.
“We know from recent incidents that e-cigarettes in checked bags can catch fire during transport,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in statement announcing the new federal rule. “Fire hazards in flight are particularly dangerous. Banning e-cigarettes from checked bags is a prudent safety measure.”
The DOT said that there were more than two dozen e-cigarette-related explosions and fires that have taken place since 2009, including some that involved e-cigarettes that were in checked luggage on airplanes.
On August 9, 2014, at Boston’s Logan Airport, an e-cigarette that was in a passenger’s checked bag in the cargo hold of a passenger plane caused a fire that forced the evacuation of the aircraft. And on January 4, 2015, at Los Angeles International Airport, a checked bag that arrived late and missed its connecting flight caught on fire when an e-cigarette inside the bag overheated.
Under the new rule, passengers may continue to put e-cigarettes in their carry-on bags (or in their pockets), but they cannot use the e-cigarettes or charge them during a flight.
