The Civil Aviation Authority of Viet Nam has decided to ban passengers and crew members from bringing to planes 15-inch MacBook Pro laptops produced and sold between September 2015 and February 2017.

Illustrative image (Source: Viet Nam Air Traffic Management)

Under the authority's instruction, no 15-inch MacBook Pro laptops in this group are allowed to be present on planes as their batteries are announced to be defective. Those violating the instruction can be denied of flights and fined.

The instruction was issued after the US Federal Aviation Administration banned certain 15-inch MacBook Pro laptops with potentially defective batteries from US flights.

Apple issued the recall in June, saying it had determined that, in a limited number of older generation 15-inch MacBook Pro units, the battery may overheat and pose a fire safety risk.

Flight crews must be trained to quickly respond to the discovery of such laptops while the plane is already airborne, the aviation authority said.

(Source: VNA)