An airline passenger of a recent flight from the Beijing International Airport to the Melbourne Airport fell asleep two hours into the travel. She woke up because of the sound of an explosion, as she realized that her battery-powered earphones had exploded in her face. The flight took place on February 19.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau issued an urgent warning this Wednesday regarding the case of this woman who suffered the earphone explosion. The incident produced severe burns to the women’s face, hair and hand. The ATSB did not reveal the identification of the woman.
The woman explained the traumatic experience as she said that the flight attendants were very helpful at the moment of the incident. She said to a local news source that when she was set to stamp her foot on the burning earphones, the officials of the airplane arrived with a bucket full of water to terminate the fire. Both the battery and its cover melt themselves into the body of the plane.
The flight attendants watched the woman’s condition to assure her stable condition, but she mostly presented superficial burns. According to one of the crew members, the whole plane suffered the consequences of the strong smell of burned plastic, as “people were coughing and choking the entire way home.”
ASTB recommendations: battery-powered products are dangerous
According to the ASTB, the proliferation of products that are integrated with batteries increase the possibilities of a mid-flight incident that can put in danger the safety of all the passengers on the plane. In this matter, the Australian agency issued a body of recommendations that hope to avoid future incidents like the one that happened in late February.
Among the suggestions, the agency asks the passengers to keep those products that use batteries in the storage units located on top of the seats, unless the person is using the device. Also, the agency demands those products to be found in the carry-on luggage and not in the checked baggage.
The ASTB says that if a device like a phone or a tablet falls into the gap located between seats, the flight attendants must localize the product before moving them since this could cause the ignition of the device. Finally, the agency recommends that if a passenger cannot locate a battery-powered product, they must not move and contact a flight attendant immediately.
In the official statement published by the ASTB, they do not establish the specific brand of the device that produced the explosion during the flight of February 19. However, they did state that no matter the brand or the type of the device, the risks of carrying a battery-powered product are the same in any situation.
Source: ATSB