Lenovo confirms flaming ThinkPad incident

By Simon Aughton

Posted on 22 Sep 2006 at 15:23

Lenovo has confirmed that a ThinkPad T43 laptop burst into flame at Los Angeles' international airport last weekend.

The Chinese company is investigating the incident and was not prepared to say whether it contained a Sony battery. Three laptop manufacturers, Apple, Dell and Toshiba, have recalled more than four million Sony batteries because they may overheat causing burns and, in extreme cases, catch fire.

Lenovo said that it would not reveal the make of the battery until it had discovered whether the laptops' owner had bought a replacement.

'Although as we have said in recent weeks, no make or model of battery is 100 percent immune from failures or overheating, to date, we have still not seen any unusual pattern of problems in our notebooks and extreme cases of overheating such as this are very rare in Lenovo notebooks,' the company said in a statement.