January 28th, 2016 | Posted in General
PRBA–The Rechargeable Battery Association is extremely disappointed with today's Air Navigation Commission decision. The ANC action represents an unprecedented departure from ICAO's procedures and overrides decisions that experts on ICAO's Dangerous Goods Panel made in October after extensive discussions and debate. ANC's decision also ignored ICAO's ongoing efforts to address the safe transport of lithium ion batteries through more stringent packaging, state of charge limits, labeling requirements as well as the development of a groundbreaking lithium battery performance-based standard.
Unfortunately, the ANC completely failed to address the most important safety issue associated with lithium batteries in transport: the lack of compliance and enforcement of the existing lithium battery dangerous goods regulations. The ban on the shipment of lithium ion batteries aboard passenger aircraft also raises serious questions about the delivery of lifesaving medical device batteries needed by patients, doctors, nurses and hospitals in remote areas and shipments to US armed services around the world.