A Lufthansa flight on the world’s largest passenger jet had to divert in the middle of the night, because someone’s iPad got stuck in a seat. The complexity of airline operations never ceases to amaze me.
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Lufthansa A380 diverts to Boston at 3AM over iPad
This incident involves Lufthansa flight LH453 on Thursday, April 23, 2025, scheduled to operate from Los Angeles (LAX) to Munich (MUC). The flight was operated by an Airbus A380 with the registration code D-AIMC. The 5,989-mile flight ordinarily takes just under 11 hours, but this flight was anything but routine.
The aircraft took off from Los Angeles at 5:46PM, right on schedule, and began flying northeast, over Nevada, Idaho, Montana, and then eventually Canada. The first three hours of the flight were totally routine. However, during the flight, a passenger’s iPad reportedly became stuck in a seat, and the crew was unable to retrieve it.
Most people might not assume that’s a big deal, but this poses the risk of thermal runaway, whereby a battery fire could be triggered by the movement of a seat’s motor. While this doesn’t pose an immediate emergency, it is a concern for airline crews. As a result, the decision was made to divert to Boston (BOS). The plane touched down there at 2:41AM local time, 5hr55min after it first departed Los Angeles.
While Boston was a bit out of the way, presumably Lufthansa decided it was the best diversion option, in terms of having maintenance support, as well as it being a station where Lufthansa could potentially accommodate passengers, in the event that this caused a larger operational disruption. It’s also an A380 destination for the airline.
Fortunately this issue was resolved fairly quickly. In Boston, maintenance staff boarded the aircraft and managed to retrieve the iPad. After just over an hour on the ground, the plane once again took off at 3:56AM. The remaining flight time to Munich was 6hr44min, and the plane touched down there at 4:40PM local time, exactly three hours behind the scheduled 1:40PM arrival. All things considered, that’s not too bad of a delay.
Electronics are an increasingly big problem for airlines
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.
This diversion wasn’t cheap. On the plus side, at least the plane was able to continue the same day, so this wasn’t a case where passengers had to be put in hotels and rebooked for another day.
As the risk of fire becomes an increasingly frequent concern for airlines, one wonders if we might start to see stricter regulations on electronic devices. 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.
At a minimum, I’m curious to what extent seat manufacturers are considering ways to mitigate the risk of electronics being stuck in seats, in a way that they can’t be retrieved. It seems like that would be a major selling point for airlines.
At a minimum, it seems like seat manufacturers should be working with airlines to provide crews with more tools and training, so that they can safely retrieve electronics from seats.
Bottom line
A Lufthansa Airbus A380 flying from Los Angeles to Munich had to divert to Boston in the middle of the night, after an iPad became stuck in a seat. Electronics pose the risk of a fire onboard aircraft, especially when they get trapped in a seat and can overheat.
Fortunately in this case, a quick diversion to Boston did the trick, as maintenance staff were able to recover the iPad. In the end, the plane arrived in Munich around three hours late.
What do you make of this Lufthansa diversion incident?
I would have just left it alone and slept and asked upon landing. Who knows to tell the flight attendant that your iPad is underneath the seat?
Absolutely ludicrous. The reasoning is still ridiculous. There's no thermal runaway. IPads are designed to shut down due to overheating.
This is f'ing ridiculous. That was probably a $100,000 mistake, all the costs resulting from it.
Airlines need to come up with plans to move the passenger, take the seat out of service, and continue the flight.
This is a travesty for both the airline's finances and the environment.
"At a minimum, I’m curious to what extent seat manufacturers are considering ways to mitigate the risk of electronics being stuck in seats"
Easy solution. Provide a toolkit onboard to take apart a seat and train the purser in its use.
I can't believe we have aircraft carrying hundreds of passengers flying through the skies without even a basic toolkit on board to deal with simple cabin maintenance issues like this. It's actually staggering when you think about.
Impressive that the net delay was only 3 hours.
Ban IPads in Business Class. You have a large screen already and can sleep otherwise. Having an electronically moving seat and loose devices is a bad recipe.
How often does this happen on, say... Finnair?
Thanks to Finnair's Airlounge seat, I would claim it is impossible to have your iPad stuck in the seat.
Challenge accepted!
If the risk of fire is so high, couldn't a group of terrorists show up with an iPad and lodge it in their seat then threaten to hit the recline button if their demands aren't met?
Lufthansa is having a real Air India moment. Meaning a string of incidents and less than edifying moments.
The stupidity of passengers not being able to hang onto their stuff never ceases to amaze me.
Have you heard of this concept called an accident?
Or sleep?
Yeah, this seems like something airlines will need to invest in being able to solve onboard.
The ROI of that investment would be overwhelmingly negative compared to taking the rare diversion (just like this one).
The worst case is not the inconvenience of an occasional diversion, it's a battery getting crushed and starting a fire. 4.4 billion air passengers per year...even if only 1% of those passengers are sitting in motorized seats, that's 44 million opportunities a year. We're lucky there hasn't already been a disaster. I'd think (hope?) manufacturers program their seats to stop if there is unexpected resistance, but even then I wouldn't trust that to work 100%...
The worst case is not the inconvenience of an occasional diversion, it's a battery getting crushed and starting a fire. 4.4 billion air passengers per year...even if only 1% of those passengers are sitting in motorized seats, that's 44 million opportunities a year. We're lucky there hasn't already been a disaster. I'd think (hope?) manufacturers program their seats to stop if there is unexpected resistance, but even then I wouldn't trust that to work 100% of the time.
I wonder how many passengers don't say anything because they fear it will cause a diversion?
I dropped a phone once that ended up on the floor under a Thai A350 business class seat. I could feel it with my fingertips, and eventually I was able to push it out using the emergency information card. The seat was upright when it happened, so my plan was to not move the seat and to only let the crew know if I couldn't get it out myself by the time we landed. It...
I dropped a phone once that ended up on the floor under a Thai A350 business class seat. I could feel it with my fingertips, and eventually I was able to push it out using the emergency information card. The seat was upright when it happened, so my plan was to not move the seat and to only let the crew know if I couldn't get it out myself by the time we landed. It was a short flight to CGK, but I couldn't risk a diversion since I had a self-connect to a domestic flight.
In general, a diversion seems like an overkill. Why not disable the seat controls, and if the seat is not in a landing configuration move the passenger to a different seat (in any cabin) for landing. Hard to imagine A380 not having any empty seats.
JJ, many are unaware of the difference between possibility and probability.
It is possible that one might be crushed by an errant aircraft wheel falling from an over flying aeroplane, however, the probability is minuscule.
I am not trying to advocate that an incident will never occur, however, it must be considered in context.
"ROI of that investment"
A toolbox is hardly a big investment.