Narrative:

On our flight from ZZZ I was standing outside the flight deck during boarding. A woman who was pre-boarding with a small tricycle style wheelchair reached down and hastily grabbed the battery from the chair before taking her seat. It caught my attention because the battery looked worse for wear. It caused me to reference the fom. Our concern was whether or not it was approved for the cabin. I then went up and checked with the ops agent to see if he had any information on the battery that we were unaware of. He had no idea. He had no idea that there might be a problem. Upon returning to the flight deck the flight attendant politely asked if we could inspect the battery; and the woman complied. On inspection; the battery did have the proper sticker indicating it was approved for the cabin; however; barely readable. Upon further inspection; both the positive and negative cables on the pigtail were damaged with exposed wires on both in very close proximity to each other. We then worked with the ground ops supervisor to secure the battery and made safe for transport. Upon landing in ZZZ1 I informed the woman of our rules for carriage; as per the [hazmat] manual; and emphasized the potential danger to the aircraft and to herself if those wire were to short against each other when the chair was in use. She was receptive; with a grateful attitude. Preventative measures: that had the potential to be a very serious inflight emergency. I believe ops agents and flight attendants need to be made aware of the danger of large lithium ion batteries such as this; and bring awareness to flight crews of where this information is because we had to dig around a little causing a delay in push.

Related reports:

Google
 

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B737-700 Captain reported passenger boarded with Lithium Ion battery incorrectly packaged for transport. Ground personnel were not aware of the HAZMAT battery safety procedure.

Narrative: On our flight from ZZZ I was standing outside the flight deck during boarding. A woman who was pre-boarding with a small tricycle style wheelchair reached down and hastily grabbed the battery from the chair before taking her seat. It caught my attention because the battery looked worse for wear. It caused me to reference the FOM. Our concern was whether or not it was approved for the cabin. I then went up and checked with the Ops Agent to see if he had any information on the battery that we were unaware of. He had no idea. He had no idea that there might be a problem. Upon returning to the flight deck the Flight Attendant politely asked if we could inspect the battery; and the woman complied. On inspection; the battery did have the proper sticker indicating it was approved for the cabin; however; barely readable. Upon further inspection; both the positive and negative cables on the pigtail were damaged with exposed wires on both in very close proximity to each other. We then worked with the Ground Ops Supervisor to secure the battery and made safe for transport. Upon landing in ZZZ1 I informed the woman of our rules for carriage; as per the [hazmat] manual; and emphasized the potential danger to the aircraft and to herself if those wire were to short against each other when the chair was in use. She was receptive; with a grateful attitude. Preventative Measures: That had the potential to be a very serious inflight emergency. I believe Ops Agents and Flight Attendants need to be made aware of the danger of large lithium ion batteries such as this; and bring awareness to flight crews of where this information is because we had to dig around a little causing a delay in push.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.