A couple of months ago, Apple announced a recall for a “limited number” of 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro laptops sold between 2015 and 2017. This was due to the fact that “the battery may overheat and pose a fire safety risk”. If you own one, you can enter your serial number into this page to check if yours is affected by the recall.
If you’re not bothered about checking, don’t worry, the FAA is enforcing it for you, should you attempt to fly with it. They have alerted major U.S. airlines about the recall, and they’re banning the affected MacBooks from flights, reminding airlines to follow 2016 safety instructions for goods with recalled batteries, Bloomberg reports.
And this recall is no idle warning. Designer, Steve Gagne detailed the story of his MacBook Pro battery exploding while at home with the screen closed, unplugged, and in sleep mode. It’s quite the harrowing tale if you happen to own one of the affected units.
A warning, earlier in the month, was issued by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, telling airlines to follow the 2017 rules that require devices with recalled lithium-ion batteries to be turned off and not used during flights. Personally, I tend to agree with the FAA’s position over this one.
The laptops included in the ban are only those MacBook Pros that are part of the recent Apple recall. So, if you’re ever planning to fly with it, you’ll want to get it sorted. Even if you’re not planning to fly with it, given Steve’s story, I’d still suggest sending it off to Apple to have the battery replaced. The recall is said to affect around 458,000 MacBook Pros sold in the US & Canada.
Once you have got the battery replaced, you are free to take it on any flight you like.
[via PetaPixel]
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