What just happened? In an incident that brings back memories of the exploding Galaxy Note 7 saga, an electronic device caught fire inside a jet last week. The culprit on this occasion was a laptop, and thankfully the plane was still on the tarmac waiting to leave when its cabin filled with smoke and had to be evacuated.
American Airlines officials confirmed (via CBS News) that on Friday, Flight 2045 was preparing to leave San Francisco for Miami when smoke started pouring out of a laptop bag located at the rear of the aircraft.
The Airbus A321 was taxiing to the gate when passengers noticed the smoke. Crew members reported the fire when they called a mayday.
As you can see in the video below, the rush to get off the plane led to panic among the passengers, who had to use emergency chutes to get from the jet to the ground. Three people suffered minor injuries during the evacuation, with one requiring transport for further treatment.
"Do not take your bags!" This is tense. Fire breaks out on American Airlines plane in San Francisco. Emergency evacuation slowed down by selfish passengers insisting on taking their bags out of the overhead bins. pic.twitter.com/O9T012kJWT
– Mike Sington (@MikeSington) July 13, 2024
"There was a light stampede. People were screaming, 'Fire in the back!' and rushing towards the doors," one passenger wrote on X.
The airline said crew members quickly removed the bag. It thanked staff for their professionalism and apologized to customers for the inconvenience.
No reports reveal the laptop's make and model or what caused it to start emitting smoke. A potential reason might be overheating, possibly due to it not shutting down or entering sleep mode properly when the lid was closed.
Laptops are allowed on planes but must be taken on board as hand luggage and have batteries rated at 100Wh or lower, which is why a lot of massive laptops have 99Wh batteries.
In 2019, the US Department of Transport and the FAA banned lithium-ion batteries from being carried as cargo on passenger planes. The rules also mandated that those shipped aboard cargo aircraft are required to have no more than a 30 percent charge.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 remains the most infamous example of exploding batteries. There were several incidents of them going up in smoke in 2016, including one on a Southwest Airlines flight. Samsung eventually recalled all the handsets.
It's not just phones and laptops that present a potential danger. In 2017, a headphone battery exploded on a woman's face as she slept during a flight.