Carbon Monoxide and Fire Alarms on planes

davetrousers

With the recent news story about two young children being killed by carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning in Greece in 2006, it got me thinking about taking a CO and fire alarm on holidays when travelling by plane.

So would you be allowed to take a CO and fire alarm (either separate or combined units) on planes? Or are they prohibited due to fire alarms being radio active? I know you can buy the brown dot CO indicators but I am querying alarms.

agrinnall

It's a good question, and I think to get an answer you might have to ask an airline as a quick look didn't find anything specific online.

InsideInsurance

You can get optical smoke detectors and not just ionisation ones.

Check with the airline or airport in question but I doubt that if its in the middle of your suitcase that its going to cause any problems at all

shaun_from_Africa

I've had a quick look in the manuals I use at work and there doesn't seem to be a restriction on carrying smoke or CO detectors for personal use.
The only thing to worry about will be the battery. Some of these detectors have a 5 or 10 year battery installed and this may well be lithium, something that might cause a problem with the airline especially if the battery can't be removed. (The last thing you want is the alarm going off accidentally in your baggage).

I think that the best thing you could do is to get the alarms and make sure that they are the type with removable batteries and take them out before travelling.
You can take new batteries with you but make sure that they are either in their original pack or wrapped up to prevent them shorting out and if they are lithium, put them in your carry on baggage and not in the hold.

zagfles

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

I've had a quick look in the manuals I use at work and there doesn't seem to be a restriction on carrying smoke or CO detectors for personal use.
The only thing to worry about will be the battery. Some of these detectors have a 5 or 10 year battery installed and this may well be lithium, something that might cause a problem with the airline especially if the battery can't be removed. (The last thing you want is the alarm going off accidentally in your baggage).

I thought laptop batteries were generally lithium? Not heard of people having problems taking laptops on flights.

shaun_from_Africa

zagfles wrote: »

I thought laptop batteries were generally lithium? Not heard of people having problems taking laptops on flights.

You can take lithium batteries on aircraft but there are certain conditions.
If the battery is installed in the equipment then it can generally go in the hold or as carry on baggage but spare batteries not fitted can only go in the cabin.
A smoke detector with a fitted lithium battery could go into the hold but the reason I suggested removing it was to prevent inadvertent operation, something that could well end up with the bag being held back and not put on board.

Moto2

You can get good portable CO monitors that are fine in either hand or hold bags.
I got issued one with work that goes everywhere with me, we're supposed to switch them on in every hotel room but that's a bit OTT for me and I usually forget or don't bother.