We have seen many incidents of the phones from the companies such as Samsung, Xiaomi and Apple explode while charging. Apparently, the science behind exploding phones is due to overcharging the battery or charging too fastly. But in a recent scary incident, a Samsung J7 caught fire mid-air on a flight. The flight attendants had to put the phone in water after spraying the smoke with a fire extinguisher.
This incident happened on Friday when the 9W971 Jet Airways flight is in mid-air from Indore-Delhi. Arpita Dhal, a Delhi resident who is carrying the Galaxy J7 along with three other smartphones kept inside her bag noticed smoke coming out from her bag after fifteen minutes into the journey. She immediately called the flight crew for help. The crew took all the necessary steps to stop the emanating smoke using fire extinguishers which didn’t work. So they had to put the mobile in water tray to stop the smoke until the flight landed safely.
Reacting to this incident Arpita told the media that “I will complain against Jet Airways after I return home. This is a question of safety of passengers in flights. If there is a major fire or blast what will they do when their fire extinguishers don’t work like this.”
The Jet Airways responded to this incident by saying “At Jet Airways safety is of paramount importance and all crew is trained to handle such situations.”
None of the crew members or the passengers got hurt. All of them landed safely. The reason for the incident is still unknown. The device was taken into custody for further investigation. Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has been reported about the incident. Making fireproof cases mandatory on long flights is being examined by the regulator. Using fireproof cases on an overseas flight will be useful especially when there’s no nearby airport to land.
Usually, batteries explode due to the usage of cheap and low-quality batteries which are not issued by the companies. Most of the past incidents of batteries exploding occurred because of not using the company issued batteries. So make sure you use only reliable batteries issued by the company.
