Nowadays when you fly, you may hear an announcement about the risk of cell phone fires, and to immediately notify a crew member if you misplace your phone. This story is an example of why.
Continue reading: Cell Phone Catches Fire On Alaska Airlines Flight
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
What phone was it? I recently came across a video of a man in China whose Samsung phone exploded out of nowhere. It wasn’t even being charged!
We need to know if this could be the next Note 7
This is when flight attendants prove that they are really important... people will freeze and panic and can cause injuries and worse... flight attendants spring into action and evacuate folks safely... I for one and grateful to them
The free phones that come with discount phone service are often very flimsy compared to a Pixel/iPhone/premium Galaxy and it wouldn’t take much to crack case and battery on one of those.
Lithium batteries: “Nobody pays attention to us until we get crushed. THEN it’s all ‘who caused the fire?!?!’”
I was on this flight and the flight attendants instructed everyone to leave an their belongings behind, but there were a number of people with backpacks or purses.
I too am not an authority, but it is more like a defective product. If you want to do investigative journalism, start with Samsung. They have had repetitive problems with their cell phones catching on fire. To be honest, everything they make has major safety or design issues. Washing machines explode, refrigerators freeze up with sheets of ice (they overheat/mine did), dishwashers refuse to fill with water (mine too!), televisions go bad etc. i joined a FB group on Samsung fridge recall. June of 2021 there were 16,000 members. In 2 months it surpassed 72,000. It could have been a random old cell phone on the plane, but it is likely a Samsung.
Cell phones contain lithium batteries, they can fail and start fires (in other things too - All Chevy Bolts were just recalled!). If my phone needs a new battery, I always get a repair by an authorized service provider or the manufacturer. There are lots of shops that will replace your battery cheaper (or sell you one for DIY), but you have no idea of the quality or safety of the battery or the workmanship installing it. If these new "right to repair laws" keep growing, I think we'll see more cell phones catching fire as unskilled people do their own repairs, sometimes with questionable parts. Pinch the battery the wrong way and it can fail.
Phones these days with glass back or slippery material makes them prone to falling lose.
I miss the old day where phones have rubber like or some patterns with grip.
I guess Apple and Samsung figured out that not only glass makes it slippery, it cracks easy too. So they can sell more phones. And make the world a better place with e-waste.
Ben mentioned "It’s no different than how you’re not supposed to use cell phones at gas pumps"
That's been an urban myth for many years, as there has never been a single documented case of a cell phone being responsible for a fire/explosion at a gas pump. There are other good reasons for not using a cell phone while pumping gas (distraction being one) but the idea that a cell phone can cause an explosion is bogus.
I may be wrong, but I think this has more to do with the cell phone batteries than a chair reclining (unless I missed it somewhere saying that the phone caught fire while the chair was reclined and wedged in?). There is a reason why all battery packs are required to be in the cabin and not the cargo hold: li-ion batteries have a tendency to catch fire in low pressure (I have no idea what the science is on this). So even the fancy suitcases with battery packs built into them must have the batteries removed and taken with you into the cabin if they’re checked luggage.
But it does make me wonder what brand of phone this was. Samsung had exploding cell phones not that long ago and if I am remembering correctly, it had to do with the batteries.
As a current flight attendant for a major airline it seems as though the crew may have overreacted a bit, and in doing so put passengers at greater risk.
1) The crew kept mood lighting on during a fire/ while placing the item in a TCB bag.
2) After the cellphone was placed in the TCB bag they blew the emergency slides due to “hazy conditions”….. (aka fire extinguisher spray and burning cellphone plastic)
3) They were already on the ground and stopped waiting for a gate. Why blow slides??
Crews are taught annually how to handle “thermal runaway” because it happens quite often. Initiating an emergency slide evacuation is definitely NOT something we’re taught when dealing with that sort of situation.
Since they were on the runway they could have very easily disarmed their doors and opened them to get fresh air in the cabin and pulled the safety strap over until “air stairs” arrived.
Pushing grandmas down slides for a contained cellphone battery fire is overkill. Lol