A long haul Air France flight diverted after a passenger misplaced their cell phone. You read that right.
In this post:
Air France flight returns to Paris over misplaced cell phone
This incident happened today (March 21, 2025), and involves Air France flight AF750, scheduled to fly from Paris Orly (ORY) to Pointe-a-Pitre (PTP), with a total of 375 passengers onboard. The 4,199-mile flight across the Atlantic was operated by a 17-year-old Boeing 777-300ER with the registration code F-GSQX.
The flight took off from Paris at 12:01PM, as scheduled, and climbed to 32,000 feet. The 777 flew across France, and then across the English Channel. However, not long after takeoff, a passenger reportedly misplaced their phone. Despite the best efforts of passengers and crew, the phone couldn’t be retrieved.
Most people might not assume that’s a big deal, but this poses a risk of a fire, especially if a phone gets lost somewhere (whether it’s a seat or some other contraption), and then becomes damaged, and potentially causes a fire.
We’ve seen airlines increasingly add restrictions on carrying power banks, given their lithium-ion batteries. However, the risk goes way beyond that, and cell phones pose a similar risk to power banks.
As a result of this, the crew made the decision to return to Paris. The plane touched down there at 2:08PM, 2hr7min after it first departed.
At that point, ground personnel boarded the plane to try to locate the missing phone. Presumably they had luck, because the same aircraft once again departed at 4:13PM, just over two hours after it landed in Paris. The aircraft is now scheduled to arrive in Pointe-a-Pitre at 7:18PM, just under four hours behind its scheduled 3:25PM arrival.
That’s at least a pretty impressive recovery. I’m curious if the same crew could still operate the flight, or if the airline found a replacement crew that quickly. I’d assume that it’s the former, but who knows.
The airline industry is a tough business, eh?
Airlines are low margin, highly cyclical businesses under the best of circumstances. But it’s incredible to think just how many challenges airlines face in their operations. Many travelers carry multiple electronic devices with them, and even losing just one of those devices could be such a risk to a plane that it prompts a diversion.
Think of all the costs incurred here, from the fuel wasted, to the duty of care for passengers, etc. All over a single phone going missing.
As the risk of fire becomes an increasingly frequent concern for airlines, one wonders if we might start to see stricter regulations on cell phones. I don’t know what that would look like, but this is a tough situation to manage.
You have people traveling with a lot more electronics, and at the same time, you have (premium) seats that are becoming increasingly complex, with more motorized functions. This increases the risk of passengers losing electronics, and even more, it increases the risk of a fire.
Bottom line
An Air France Boeing 777 had to return to Paris after a cell phone went missing shortly after takeoff. It’s not clear where exactly the phone ended up, but the crew erred on the side of caution, and returned to Paris. Ground staff were able to recover the phone, and the plane departed around two hours later. In the end, the flight will be landing at its destination around four hours late.
What do you make of this Air France diversion incident?
Has there been a fire or many fires to have this kind of reaction? I've never heard of such a fire before or the risk of one.
I lost my phone in the seat on La Compagnie flying into Milan Malpensa. It was towards the end of the flight but the FA crew couldn't locate it. Even the passenger sitting behind me agreed they heard it hit the floor inside the seat. Well no one on board could find it, so they just had me switch seats so the mechanism wouldn't be used for the rest of the flight. Upon landing, they...
I lost my phone in the seat on La Compagnie flying into Milan Malpensa. It was towards the end of the flight but the FA crew couldn't locate it. Even the passenger sitting behind me agreed they heard it hit the floor inside the seat. Well no one on board could find it, so they just had me switch seats so the mechanism wouldn't be used for the rest of the flight. Upon landing, they had me wait for maintenance and when the maintenance crew member got there I told him in Italian exactly where I heard the thump. A few minutes later and there it was, standing upright inside the seat on the floor. I was so thankful I wanted to give him a nice tip but they're not allowed to accept tips.
Do not believe it. I had a similar situation from CDG-JFK and lost my cellphone with AA at takeoff as cellphone was on the Biz table and slid under my seat. I spoke to crew. During the flight, they looked, they could not find. I was in the last row of Biz so it was against the wall panel behind my seat. I made a Lost Claim and they never found it.
I really do not think many crews think it is a safety issue- at least on American Airlines.
Hopefully seat design companies are taking this into account and designing their future seats so it is harder to lose cellphone into the seat.
If you design something to be idiot proof, the universe will design a better idiot.
Of course they were traveling to a third world country. No surprise.
Since when is France a third world country?
@ Jack -
I agree in theory but I was thinking along the lines of ban stupid / irrepsonsible / inconsiderate pax. But that would apply to at least half of the flying morons these days.... Guess it's not a good economic model !
Given how much Lucky has praised AF first class, I can't help but wonder if this was a first class passenger who realized they left their phone at the gate, and AF returned just so he could have it? #sarcasm
Seriously, though, does AF now just have to pay the EC 261 compensation to the entire flight? Any consequences for the passenger?
No compensation due in my opinion as this should be an easy case of being outside airline control, but the duty of care would apply. However, since all pax got to PTP on the same day, there won't be much of that applicable except for some small number of pax connecting elsewhere.
No consequences for the passenger, this clearly wasn't intentional.
Actually incorrect. They will pay as it’s a commercial decision. Eur400 for Metropolitan France ( Guadeloupe) if over 4 hrs.
Middle-aged guy rant:
I'm waiting for the monumental study that shows how these f***ing little pieces of plastic in our pockets have upended centuries of human progress. I hate them.
That said, I carry one every day and I tried to do a New Year's resolution with my family of locking them up for a month. No one bit and I don't blame them.
But I'm still going to try at some...
Middle-aged guy rant:
I'm waiting for the monumental study that shows how these f***ing little pieces of plastic in our pockets have upended centuries of human progress. I hate them.
That said, I carry one every day and I tried to do a New Year's resolution with my family of locking them up for a month. No one bit and I don't blame them.
But I'm still going to try at some point. It still boggles my mind that I spent half my life without a cell phone and did perfectly fine. When I was 18, I went all over NYC doing things with amazing people in amazing places and all I had were my wallet and my keys on me.
I'm surprised you didn't reference how Asian airlines are cracking down on power banks due to fires - they're getting banned or restricted by several airlines and I think there was just another fire on Hong Kong airlines?
I could never work in a job where I had to deal with the general public on a regular basis.
To quote Larry David “A customer is usually a moron and a*hole”
Wow. Banks? Realtors? Architects? et al.
You are amzing with your bubble life.
Flight attendant here: there is NOTHING more annoying than AirPods lost in the seat. We are required to dig for them and if they aren’t found, the seat can’t be moved until maintenance personnel on the ground find the device. Many of us have begun carrying extendable magnets to help us dig.
Just to underscore how frequent this is, I recently had a passenger lose her phone in the seat 3 times in 1...
Flight attendant here: there is NOTHING more annoying than AirPods lost in the seat. We are required to dig for them and if they aren’t found, the seat can’t be moved until maintenance personnel on the ground find the device. Many of us have begun carrying extendable magnets to help us dig.
Just to underscore how frequent this is, I recently had a passenger lose her phone in the seat 3 times in 1 hour. Needless to say she was told to put her phone inside her suitcase until landing.
Spot on. I will sadly confess that one of my airpods disappeared on AF flight in J and the crew spent about 45mins dismantling the seat trying to get it. Since then i've resorted to using my Bose noise cancelling headphones.
The lesson learned here is that the crew need better training how to disassemble the seat. If a group the h can do it quickly, the crew should be able to do so it’s well.
unless I missed something in the article - but did they actually find the phone on the plane?
and a serious question - but what is the "data" (or do we not care about such things anymore) on a phone getting crushed and causing a fire?
(yes, I know lithium fires are different....)
I lost my phone in business class on an Emirates 777 BKK-SYD and the crew had my seat ripped apart in about 5 seconds with a jug of water on hand in case it caught fire. I think they just dump them in the jug if necessary. That AF diversion would have easily been 100-200k. Wild.
Passenger needs to be banned from the airline for life. Keep track of your stuff, people!
most low quality comment here.
If a phone falls into the mechanism of a lay-flat seat airlines instruct passengers to get FA assistance in retrieving it to avoid a fire risk. If airlines start banning people for doing the right thing it would immediately begin incentivizing risky behavior.
airlines tell passengers to ask for FA assistance if ANY phone falls into the seat mechanism, not just lie flat seats.
What a bizarre comment, Jack. I would say well done to the passenger for actually speaking up about this potential safety issue. Many people would likely think "eh, I'll look for it when we land."