Flight Delayed After E-Cigarette Ignites in Passenger's Carry-On This is the article I came upon looking for the story. The interesting part to me were some of the comments. One commenter stated that they didn't want to be in a cabin surrounded by e-cigs.
It isn't clear by their language if they meant folks using them, or just the fact that they are there. EDIT, the commenter stated that these things blow up on an increasingly regular basis, and they don't want to be in a cabin surrounded by e-cigs.
The fallout from these poorly covered "news" stories will be fear regarding e-gigs by the uninformed. If they keep hearing that these things catch fire, that will be ingrained into their mind.
I experienced this a few weeks back when talking to an old friend I hadn't seen in years. When he saw me take a few puffs on my mod he said to me in full earnestness, "you know those things blow up, right?". I brushed it off with a yeah, if folks don't use them right.
If there are more incidents on planes from carless users, my fear is that the FAA or airlines may well choose to disallow ecigs and or loose lithium batteries.
In this particular incident, there are 160 passengers and six crew, these folks were inconvenienced at the least, and some of them may actually have concerns going forward and voice those concerns to the airline or the FAA. The details really don't mater to someone who isn't a user and gets personally affected through someone else's carelessness. And I for one, can see their side of it. Sad...
