An American Airlines jet had a pretty dramatic evacuation yesterday, after a passenger’s laptop reportedly caught fire. We always hear about the risk of lithium ion batteries, so here’s a case where it actually caused an issue. Fortunately it was caught on the ground…
American jet evacuated as cabin fills with smoke
This incident happened yesterday (Friday, July 12, 2024), and involves American Airlines flight AA2045, scheduled to fly from San Francisco (SFO) to Miami (MIA) at 12:17PM. The flight was operated by a nine-year-old Airbus A321 with the registration code N917UY.
Just as boarding finished up, a bag in the back of the aircraft with a laptop reportedly caught fire, causing smoke to fill the back of the cabin. The crew immediately called for an evacuation. So not only did passengers evacuate through the jet bridge (which was still connected), but multiple emergency slides were also deployed. The bag with the laptop was also removed from the aircraft, though perhaps not in the way it should have been (more on that below).
Everyone evacuated safely, though there were a few minor injuries from use of the slides.
Below you can see the VASAviation recreation of what happened, including air traffic control audio.
Here’s a statement that an American spokesperson provided:
During boarding of American Airlines flight 2045 with service from San Francisco (SFO) to Miami (MIA), smoke was reported from inside a customer’s bag. The bag was quickly removed by our crew members and all customers exited the aircraft. We thank our crew members for their professionalism and apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.
As you’d expect, the aircraft was taken out of service. American managed to find a replacement plane, but only just under 12 hours later. So rather than arriving at 8:58PM on Friday, passengers will instead be arriving at 8:41AM on Saturday. Ouch.
If you check a bag on a plane, you’re usually asked to confirm that there are no lithium ion batteries in it. That’s for exactly this reason, as there’s a risk of them catching fire. That’s easier to control inside the aircraft cabin, rather than in the cargo hold. In this case it was also a good thing that this happened while the aircraft was still on the ground.
Family proudly defies crew member instructions
Below is some video footage from inside the cabin during the evacuation (note that there’s some bad language used). As you can see, the crew pretty assertively orders passengers to keep moving forward and leave their carry-on items behind, though it seems like passengers maybe aren’t doing a great job following their instructions? Unfortunately that’s nothing new…
Separately, you have this guy from Austria explaining his version of events in an interview, which I just find kind of puzzling. This guy proudly talks about how he and his father both weren’t following crew member instructions.
He talks about how he wanted to open the door in the back left of the plane (presumably he was near the last emergency exit row on the A321, by the back of the cabin), how he wasn’t allowed to, but how he did it anyway.
He then explains how his father took the backpack with the smoking laptop, wanted to throw it out the exit, was told not to by crew members, and did it anyway.
When asked about why he decided to open the door despite flight attendant instructions to the contrary, he explained:
“I wasn’t supposed to. She told me not to, but when I boarded the plane, I had this strange feeling, and I already looked at the doors on the wings, and they said ‘armed.’ So my first initial thought when I got up off the seat, I was like the doors have to be armed, so the slides have to be armed, and then I could jump out. I was actually a bit outside the plane and I tried to jump, but the slides wasn’t released, so I did get back into the plane. Yeah, that’s basically the first thought.”
So to recap, this guy (kid?) is bragging about how he and his father were defying crew member instructions and following their own gut in deciding how to handle this situation?
Yeah, let’s not listen to the crew members who are trained in emergency evacuations, but let’s instead listen to the guy who already had a “strange feeling” when he boarded the aircraft. Cool.
Bottom line
An American Airlines Airbus A321 was evacuated at SFO yesterday, after a laptop caught fire, and caused the cabin to fill with smoke. There’s always a risk with lithium ion batteries, and in this case the issue was at least caught on the ground.
Given that the plane was still at the gate, this was a fairly dramatic evacuation. For that matter, it’s rather unusual to see someone bragging about how they defied crew member instructions, and instead followed their gut.
What do you make of this American jet’s evacuation?
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