Rosaviatsiya has sent a recommendation to the Ministry of Transport to restrict or completely ban the use of portable batteries on board aircraft. According to Izvestia, citing a report by the Ural MTU commission of the agency, the reason was the investigation of the February incident with the Yekaterinburg-Istanbul flight, where a power bank caught fire. The device was extinguished with a fire extinguisher and placed in a container with water, but a passenger suffered a finger burn and the seat was damaged.
The commission found that current legislation does not contain a direct ban on the use of external batteries during flight. At the same time, from January 1, 2026, the International Air Transport Association already requires power banks to be transported only in carry-on baggage and prohibits their use during taxiing, takeoff and landing.
Lithium-ion batteries ignite when mechanically damaged, when the controller is short-circuited, or when overheated, so their transportation in the luggage compartment, where it is impossible to quickly detect smoke, is prohibited everywhere.
Russian airlines are tightening their own rules. Ural Airlines has made changes: power banks are allowed to be transported only in carry-on baggage under the seat or in the seat pocket, it is forbidden to charge them or connect devices to them at all stages of the flight. Similar restrictions apply to S7, Aeroflot and Azur Air. If the ban is legislatively enshrined, passengers will have to rely only on the USB ports and sockets built into the seats, which are equipped with modern aircraft.
Read more materials on the topic:
- Breakthrough for HSR: the first domestic batteries went into series production
- The Ministry of Transport announced that there are no plans to tighten the rules for transporting power banks on airplanes
- There are no plans to ban the transportation of power banks on airplanes in Russia
