You've made the right choice

How often do you learn you've been right, and so quickly?

This is a story about Southwest Airlines, a decisive change, and the satisfaction of knowing quickly that you’ve made the right call.

It starts for our purposes with a story out of South Korea earlier this year that probably everybody involved in airplane safety around the world paid attention to.

In short, an Air Busan Airbus A321ceo caught fire at an airport near the city of Gimhae. Thankfully nobody died, but several people were injured and the plane itself was ultimately consumed in flames and destroyed.

Two months later, a Korean investigation identified the cause of the fire: a portable power bank, like many of us use to keep our laptops and other electronics charged, which had been left in a passenger’s bag in an overhead bin.

Airlines have long been concerned about the potential danger of passengers bringing lithium-ion batteries aboard aircraft since they can heat up quickly and ultimately catch fire if they short-circuit.

That’s why, since 2016, they’ve been banned from passengers’ checked luggage on almost every flight in the world. And, it’s why Southwest Airlines took what it said was a “first-in-industry” policy regarding lithium-ion batteries in the cabin as well.

How can you know what didn’t happen?

No, Southwest didn’t ban the batteries outright. Instead, here’s the rule:

When a portable charger/power bank is used during a flight, it must be out of any baggage and remain in plain sight. Do not charge devices in the overhead bin.

It sounds simple and straightforward, and frankly, I can’t imagine many objections. But it also struck me when I saw the policy as the kind of thing for which we’d never know for sure if it would pay off.

I mean: How can you know if a mishap didn’t happen, but it would have happened if you hadn’t instituted a new policy?

Turns out I was wrong about that.

24 hours later

The new Southwest policy went into effect on Wednesday, May 28.

Just 24 hours later, Southwest Airlines flight 1844, traveling from Baltimore to Tampa, was diverted to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina due to overheating and smoke from a passenger’s lithium-ion battery.

Flight attendants put the device in a thermal containment bag (something like this), the plane landed safely, and passengers continued on to Tampa about five hours later — after Southwest was able to bring in another plane.

But most importantly, I think, the passenger whose battery caught fire knew it immediately, because he or she had kept it out and visible while charging, just like the Southwest policy requires.

Here’s how Southwest described the situation when I asked for more details:

To us, it’s a good indication our policy worked. The device was in plain sight in a seat back pocket when it began to smoke. It was immediately recognized and managed per our current policy. Part of our [safety management system] is to validate if the new control – the notifications and briefings to Customers – is working.

Our investigation determined the Customer had the portable charger visible and readily accessible while it was charging the phone. We continuously monitor our controls to ensure they are implemented and effective. If we see any issues or new hazards, we’ll modify or update the procedures.

Nice to know you’ve made the right choice

I don’t want us to be overly dramatic about this whole thing. The truth is that so many of us use these batteries that every commercial flight now likely has many of them aboard at all times.

Very few of them result in danger. That said, it does happen enough to be concerned about.

This year alone, there have been 22 confirmed cases of onboard lithium batteries overheating, smoking, or catching fire in the U.S.; last year there were 89 cases, according to the FAA.

Look, I’ve been the first to criticize Southwest Airlines about some of the changes the airline has made recently — getting rid of its bags fly free program, and generally reversing its ethos to put investors over employees and customers.

But this time: No doubt, it was the right decision.

It’s nice — and maybe rare — to know so quickly that you’ve made a good one.

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7 other things worth mentioning

• Congressional Republicans blocked a Democratic effort to force the release of the Epstein files. The debacle has pitted Attorney General Bondi and President Trump – who was friends with Epstein for many years before disowning him – against the deputy FBI director, Dan Bongino. (The Guardian)

• Newly uncovered metadata reveals that nearly three minutes of footage were cut from what the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI described as “full raw” surveillance video from the only functioning camera near Jeffrey Epstein’s prison cell the night before he was found dead. It’s unclear what, if anything, the minutes cut from the first clip showed. (Wired)

• Residents in a Miami suburb used an ax, fire extinguisher and garden hose to rescue four people from a small plane that crashed into a tree in yet another mishap near a busy South Florida airport. “It was nothing short of heroic,” Angelo Castillo, the mayor of Pembroke Pines in Broward County, said Tuesday. (AP)

• Fauja Singh, a runner believed to be the oldest person to complete a marathon, has died in a road accident in India aged 114. The athlete, who lived in Ilford in east London, was hit by a car and suffered fatal injuries while trying to cross a road in his birth village of Beas Pind, near Jalandhar in Punjab, on Monday, according to reports in India. (The Guardian)

• How incel language infected the mainstream internet — and brought its toxicity with it. (The Verge)

• Would You Pay Nearly $9,000 for a Puzzle? Some of the most devoted hobbyists are willing to shell out big bucks for what one called “a couture puzzle.” (The New York Times)

• New York City experienced its second-wettest hour in history as torrential rain drenched the city overnight — with terrifying footage showing straphangers trapped on subways by the freak flash flooding. “New York City picked up a hair over 2 inches last night — 2.07 inches to be exact — making it the second wettest single hour ever recorded in the city,” FOX Forecast Center meteorologist Christopher Tate said of the rainfall recorded between 6:51 p.m. and 7:51 p.m. in Central Park. (The New York Post)

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Thanks for reading. Photo by Owen Lystrup on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this before at Inc.com. See you in the comments.