Misplacing your phone or passport before takeoff can be enough to make anyone’s heart race with panic.
But before you dive into a frantic search, there’s one crucial piece of advice airlines want passengers to know: if your phone falls down the side of your seat, alert a flight attendant immediately.
While it may seem like a minor inconvenience, losing your phone on a plane actually becomes a serious safety concern – and there’s a terrifying yet rational reason behind it.
Back in 2018, a Qantas passenger dropped his phone during a flight from Los Angeles to Melbourne, Australia.
As he attempted to retrieve the device, it became crushed after he moved his seat – resulting in the phone emitting ‘smoke.’
Fortunately, the cabin crew quickly responded and contained the incident before it escalated.
It soon transpired that the phone’s lithium-ion batteries had caught on fire, causing the device to ‘smoke.’
Lithium-ion batteries, which power most of our devices, including smartphones, pose a significant risk when they’re crushed or damaged, as they can overheat, ignite, or even explode.
Losing your phone on a plane actually becomes a serious safety concern – as lithium-ion batteries, which power most of our devices, including smartphones, pose a significant risk
This is why passengers are now advised to notify the cabin crew immediately if their phone slips between the seats.
Flight attendants are trained to handle such situations and can take appropriate action to mitigate the risk.
While it may be tempting to retrieve your device yourself, it’s always safer to let the professionals handle it.
According to the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority, more than 40 fires were sparked on planes in the last five years due to mobile phones being crushed after they fell down aircraft seats.
The issue is set to continue to be a ‘significant hazard’ in the future.
Statistics collated by the aviation regulator were revealed in an official report into a fire on board a British Airways Dreamliner caused by a mobile phone being damaged by a seat.
The Air Accidents Investigation Branch report (AAIB) stated: ‘The CAA has received 166 reports of PEDs lost in passenger seats in the last five years.
‘A quarter of these events resulted in fire or smoke in the cabin, demonstrating that this is a significant hazard to the safety of the aircraft.’
The remains of a mobile phone which caught fire after getting crushed by the seat mechanism on a British Airways Dreamliner plane, sparking a fire alert on a flight from Miami to Heathrow
In 2023, the CAA issued a warning to passengers to pack lithium batteries, including those in phones, power banks, and spare batteries, in their carry-on baggage, not checked luggage, to avoid the risk of fire.
It comes as two airlines have banned an everyday item from being used their planes over fears they could explode in midair.
Vietnam Airlines and budget carrier Vietjet Air said that passengers are now not allowed to use lithium-based powerbanks aboard their planes.
Many airlines across the world have banned the use of the devices on their planes in recent years due to the risk they carry of igniting unexpectedly.
Over the weekend, both airlines said their passengers were not allowed to use them on their planes.
Passengers also have to take them out of carry-on bags and place them so they are visible at all times.
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .