Why you should alert the crew if your cell phone falls under the seat of an airplane

The Pin

December 16 2021, 5:36 pm

The space in airplanes is very small for so many passengers and it is not difficult to become an annoying person for the people around you. It is not necessary to get drunk before boarding or to create a scandal with the crew for a minor thing, which would be two of the situations that can cause the most discomfort in the personnel of the plane and also in the occasional traveling companions. All this can generate tension, but there is another situation that is common and we must try to avoid it because, in addition to generating anger, it can be dangerous for the safety of the flight: that the cell phone falls under the seats.

For Infobae

In 2018, a passenger on a plane bound for Melbourne, Australia dropped his mobile phone in the gap between the seats. As is to be expected, the man wanted to get it back and for that he moved the chair, which quickly generated a fire as a result of the friction of the lithium battery with the metal, The New York Post reported. The personnel on board took the fire extinguishers and put out the fire. The inconvenience endangered the lives of all the occupants of the plane and could have generated a tragedy.

Passengers should know that the seat should never be moved if the phone is dropped or lost during a flight because everything can get complicated. In the case of the plane that was bound for Melbourne, the incident reached such a point that the pilot decided to deviate towards Sydney as a precaution. The flight had a happy ending, but the disorder was enormous.

Since that time, Australian airlines have warned that in case of losing their mobile phone inside the plane, passengers should contact a member of the crew and do not try to search for it by their own means.

The lithium batteries that mobile phones and tablets have are highly flammable in case of crushing them with some metallic element. “Smartphones can fall into the lower mechanism of aircraft seats and crush when the seat moves,” stated the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority. “This can damage the phone’s lithium battery, which can lead to the battery overheating and causing a fire.”

“Passengers must remember never to move their seat for any reason if it is lost during a flight,” emphasized the association. “You always have to ask for help from the crew in the cabin of the plane, who must immediately sound the alarm in case the phone suffers any damage in this situation.”

But the Australian flight was not the only one in which something like this occurred. In August of this year, the cabin of an Alaska Airlines flight caught fire before taking off due to a damaged mobile phone, causing all passengers to evacuate the aircraft.

Two other similar events also occurred in 2018. One of them, reported by The Sun newspaper, was during the month of July. Then, a video was leaked showing passengers on a Ryanair flight escaping through an emergency conduit after a cell phone battery caught fire minutes before takeoff. In February of that same year, a video also circulated showing a passenger bag from the China Southern company on fire in the upper hand luggage compartments.

It is also advisable not to send cell phones or tablets in checked luggage. This could cause a fire on the underside of the plane. Aircraft have fire extinguishing systems in their holds, but of course it will always be better if they should not be activated, it is also an area of ​​the plane where it would be more difficult for the crew to detect a fire.