The US Federal Aviation Authority has said select MacBook Pro laptops that have been declared a fire risk by Apple won’t be allowed on board any flights in the US. Apple had earlier stated those laptops sold between September 2015 and February 2017 tend to overheat and pose a fire risk.
The flight safety authority said the MacBook Pro units won’t be allowed on any of its flights, either in the cargo or as a carry-on baggage in the passenger cabin. The fire risk is posed by the batteries in the said laptop units which Apple said may catch fire after they become overheated.
Apple already has a recall order issued back in June for the affected MacBook Pro laptops devices which it said has a flaw with the lithium-ion batteries. The Cupertino company though has said it’s just a ‘limited number’ among all the MacBook Pro devices sold between the said period that are found to have the faulty battery.
The company, however, refused to divulge exactly how many of the MacBook Pro devices have been affected. However, it’s estimated to be about 432,000 MacBook Pros devices that come under the purview of the recall with those faulty battery expected to be less than that.
Nonetheless, the airline authorities have issued a blanket ban on all MacBook Pro devices as a preventive measure to avoid in-flight fire incidents. Apple too has accorded top priority towards consumer safety and is offering to replace the affected battery free of charge. It’s not known though if the laptops with replaced batteries are being allowed onboard and so on.
It’s also not clear exactly how the airline authorities are going to implement the ban given that it is pretty hard and time-consuming singling out the affected MacBook Pros from those that are perfectly in order. In any case, the above ban also brings back to memory the infamous incident about the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 which too was banned owing to fire hazard.
Apple is recalling 2018 MacBook Air to replace the faulty main logic board
However, unlike the MacBook Pro, Note 7 was unique and could easily be singled out from the rest. Not so with the MacBook Pro.
