iPad Jammed in Seat Forces Emergency Landing of Airplane Carrying 400 Passengers (yahoo.com) 38
An anonymous reader shared this report from Business Insider:
A Lufthansa flight carrying 461 passengers had to divert after someone's tablet became "jammed" in a business-class seat.
The Airbus A380 took off from Los Angeles on Wednesday, bound for Munich, and had been flying for around three hours when the pilots diverted to Boston Logan International Airport. In a statement to Business Insider, an airline spokesperson said the tablet had become "jammed in a Business Class seat" and had "already shown visible signs of deformation due to the seat's movements" when the flight diverted. [The aviation site] Simply Flying, which first reported the news, said the device was an iPad.
The decision to divert was taken "to eliminate any potential risk, particularly with regard to possible overheating," the spokesperson added, saying that it was the joint decision of the crew and air traffic control. Lithium batteries pose a safety risk if damaged, punctured, or crushed... In a confined space like an aircraft cabin, a lithium battery fire poses a serious hazard to the passengers onboard. Last year, a Breeze Airways flight from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh had to make an emergency landing in Albuquerque after a passenger's laptop caught fire.
The Airbus A380 took off from Los Angeles on Wednesday, bound for Munich, and had been flying for around three hours when the pilots diverted to Boston Logan International Airport. In a statement to Business Insider, an airline spokesperson said the tablet had become "jammed in a Business Class seat" and had "already shown visible signs of deformation due to the seat's movements" when the flight diverted. [The aviation site] Simply Flying, which first reported the news, said the device was an iPad.
The decision to divert was taken "to eliminate any potential risk, particularly with regard to possible overheating," the spokesperson added, saying that it was the joint decision of the crew and air traffic control. Lithium batteries pose a safety risk if damaged, punctured, or crushed... In a confined space like an aircraft cabin, a lithium battery fire poses a serious hazard to the passengers onboard. Last year, a Breeze Airways flight from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh had to make an emergency landing in Albuquerque after a passenger's laptop caught fire.
Reminds me of a prank I like to do... (Score:1)
...on public transport. I rename my device wifi to Galaxy Note 7. It always causes a laugh riot.
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A pub / beer garden I frequent in Germany has a student dorm on top of it.
One of the WiFi networks is called: "terror network".
Re: Reminds me of a prank I like to do... (Score:2)
Try "allahu akbar!" and see what happens.
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Or "Gay_Porn_Server"
Yeah, I've seen Airplane! enough times to know where this is going. The captain browses the entire collection and ends up feeling quite dejected when none of the, uh, "content" is underage.
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So Much Stupid (Score:1)
On so many levels.
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I agree with this. More people should file frivolous lawsuits. Stupid people should experience the pain of being separated from their money.
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They can't sue the passenger. The decision to divert the flight was made by the carrier, not the passenger.
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If you are bitten by a dog, do you file a complaint against the dog, or against its owner
Both.
At first you call 911 or animal control's emergency numbers to report the dog bite and identify the animal, so that they can get police and responders out to seize and subdue or capture the animal. They will either exterminate the animal or take them into custody.
There is a government proceeding against the property, and the government will likely formally forfeit and euthanize the animal.
So at first your initi
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It wasn't the passenger that was stupid here. It was the airline / pilot / crew, for considering the jammed iPad an emergency worth diverting the plane.
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Aircraft safety is paramount, and a damaged device is a fire hazard - calling the airline stupid is the real stupidity here.
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Aircraft safety is paramount, yes. But that does not equate to diverting a plane because an iPad is damaged.
iPads have been known to catch fire while charging. https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/0... [1news.co.nz] Should planes be diverted if someone charges an iPad? No.
Both charging an iPad, and a damaged iPad, are potential fire hazards. But the potential is tiny. In one case, we accept the risk, even on an airplane. In the other, apparently not.
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Again more bullshit from you.
Sure, devices have been known to catch fire while charging, but it's far from a normal occurrence, so you are allowed to use and charge devices in a flying aircraft.
But a damaged device is another matter entirely - stop trying to justify your own stupidity with ridiculous comparisons.
Re: Stupid should be painful (Score:3)
https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/airline-passengers-and-batteries
There has been a rise of high profile cases involving device batteries catching fire for many reasons on an airplane.
As for your charging an i
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It's not just the potential, it's the problem of containing the fire if it does happen.
First, an iPad with a visibly damaged battery is much more likely to catch fire than one that's plugged in (and this alone would be enough to divert the aeroplane, since generally the rules on such things require a plane to be landed as soon as possible for any damaged lithium cell).
Second, it's jammed in a seat. The only way to stop a lithium fire from burning the whole plane is to put it in a bucket of sand. If you ca
If iPads were that dangerous... (Score:3, Interesting)
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But as proctologists can tell you, it's hard to know what can get jammed where; one can't anticipate all angels of all devices in all plane furniture.
I suggest they have tool-kits on planes that help them quickly unjam gizmos.
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Airlines are going to have a procedure to deal with a lithium fire in-flight. If a device is potentially damaged and inaccessible, those procedures might not apply. When you're 10km in the air, bet safe than sorry.
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It's not the iPad. It's the fact the iPad got jammed in the seat and was being crushed by it. By the time it was retrieved it was visibly deformed by operating the seat so puncturing the battery is a real concern.
The problem was the iPad got jammed in the seat mechanism.
Depending on the charge level of the device - the deformed battery could be a nothingburger or a spicy one. (They catch fire because they internally
Re: If iPads were that dangerous... (Score:2)
"Damaged or recalled batteries and battery-powered devices, which are likely to create sparks or generate a dangerous evolution of heat, must not be carried aboard an aircraft "
https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/airline-passengers-and-batteries
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I don't think it was ever about the real danger posed. You could take up to 1 litre of liquid on board, it just had to be in 10 x 100ml bottles.
I don't think you could make a very effective bomb out of an iPad. There isn't much room in there for the explosive, and the shape doesn't lend itself to directing the blast to cause maximum damage. It has to get through the x-ray machine as well.
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Re:HEADLINE IS WRONG. So was the pilot (Score:4, Insightful)
You are the idiot here.
Battery fires do not require the device to be charging, and the summary notes that the device was already showing deformations caused by operation of the seat, so the integrity of the battery was a real concern.
Diverting the aircraft was a sound decision based on safety.
Fuck people like you.
Re:HEADLINE IS WRONG. So was the pilot (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure why you think it has to be charging to have thermal runaway. You can find plenty of videos [youtube.com] of lithium/etc batteries having thermal runaway without being actively charging. All it takes is a charged battery and physical damage.
Whether this particular case was warranted or not I can't answer, but it does say it had shown signs of deformation from the seat moving around.
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Well, it is widely known that the FAA is pretty bad at thrir job - they suck at oversight, enforcing rules and standard language. They also give a CPL to basically anyone.
And a lithium battery can start burning when damaged even if it is outside a device and not connected to anything. Happened to me a couple of times, was scary shit.
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Wow, this is an interesting weird belief that seems to permiate this thread. Go and poke a hole in a lithium battery with a nail, and see what hapens. Hint - if you expose lithium metal to water in the air, BAD things happen very very quickly.
Not true, but wouldn't surprise me if ... (Score:2)
Someone wanted to fly from LA to Boston, but discovered that a plane ticket from LA to Munich was cheaper, even counting the price of trashing the tablet. /s
Going out on a limb ... (Score:2)
This is simply next-level Skiplagging. :-)
HCF (Score:3)
Opcode: HCF
"Halt and Catch Fire"
Processor halts and catches fire.
If bit 57 (DZO) of the Machine Status Word
is set before the HCF instruction is executed
an attempt will be made to explode.
Correct decision (Score:2)
Obviously, the designers of that seat should be fired...