Lithium-ion Thermal Runaway Incident At Beta Technologies One of the issues with Lithium-Ion is the possibility of Thermal Runaway. This is exactly the same issue that happened at Beta Technologies facility in near Burlington, Vermont recently. A Lithium-ion battery pack stored in a shipping container caught fire at the site on August 26th. The fire was extinguished fairly quickly but it would not be the first time that Beta Technologies has gone through this kind of incident. In 2019, a similar incident involving lithium-ion battery packs in a container happened.
Beta Technologies is brining an all-electric ALIA 250 eVTOL in to service in 2025 -that is the plan-. Beta suggests the battery pack that caught fire was not approved for flight at the time and no persons were injured in the incident. No test aircraft or major equipment was damaged in the container fire. There is no official word from the developer on if the fire affects the certification timeline. Below is an image by the South Burlington Fire Department. For more information: BETA Technologies 1150 Airport Drive South Burlington, VT 05403 www.beta.team ***
