A Samsung Galaxy A21 Smartphone Caught Fire on a Plane
An Alaska Airlines flight was evacuated on Monday night after a smartphone on the plane caught fire, reports The Seattle Times (via The Verge). A spokesperson for the Port of Seattle said that the device that was burned was a Samsung Galaxy A21.
In an email to The Seattle Times, the Port of Seattle spokesperson said that the phone was "burned beyond recognition," but the passenger who owned the device provided details on the model. "We could not confirm it by looking at the remains of the device," said the spokesperson.
The flight crew extinguished the fire with a battery containment bag, but smoke forced the deployment of the evacuation slides. The smartphone did not catch fire until the flight had landed at the Seattle-Tacoma airport. 128 passengers and six crew members were transported by bus to the terminal, and there were no serious injuries.
On Twitter, a passenger who was on the flight said that the burning smartphone was "like a smoke machine."
There are often isolated incidents of cellular phones catching fire after issues with the battery, but in this cause, the problem could be notable as back in 2016, Samsung was
forced to recall its Galaxy Note 7 due to exploding batteries.
At that time, there were multiple reports of Note 7 devices exploding or catching fire while charging, and the device was ultimately banned from all airplanes and flights in the United States.
There has been no evidence that the Galaxy A21 is facing a similar widespread issue at this time.
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Top Rated Comments
For Samsung, it’s just Tuesday.
The story about an iPhone 6 fire on a flight to Hawaii didn't make front page news because it was one tiny isolated incident... kinda like this one about the Samsung A21
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/iphone-6-catches-fire-on-flight-to-hawaii.1962027/
Nor did the story about an iPhone 6 that nearly exploded in a 11 year old girl's hand while she was using it
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2019/07/16/iphone-almost-explodes-california-girl-hand-burns-holes-blanket/1743168001/
Or the story of an iPhone 6 Plus exploding in a kid's back pocket while he was in class
https://6abc.com/rowan-university-mount-laurel-new-jersey-apple/1534315/
Or the iPhone 7 that burned up a guy's car
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/21/iphone-7-car-fire-australia-exploding-battery-samsung
A story about airlines banning Mac laptops did make front page though
https://www.macrumors.com/2019/08/29/macbook-pro-some-airline-restrictions/
I don't even recall seeing MR report on the iPhone XR fire
https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/20/iphone_xr_inflight_fire_british_airways/
or iPhone X exploding
https://9to5mac.com/2021/03/02/exploding-iphone-x-lawsuit/
though the iPhone 4 fire did make front page, but it didn't happen on a plane.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/firefighters-iphone-4-spontaneously-caught-fire-while-charging.1293965/