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An airline passenger traveling from Beijing, China, to Melbourne, Australia, had burns to her face after her battery-operated headphones suddenly exploded.
“As I went to turn around I felt burning on my face,” the woman, who has decided to remain anonymous, told the ATSB. “I just grabbed my face which caused the headphones to go around my neck. I continued to feel burning so I grabbed them off and threw them on the floor. They were sparking and had small amounts of fire.”
A woman suffered burns to her face and hand after her battery-powered headphones caught fire midflight https://t.co/F9D5z2ny08 pic.twitter.com/C4mrNEbaIe
— CNN (@CNN) March 15, 2017
Luckily a flight attendant was nearby to douse the headphones with a bucket of water. The ATSB reports that the torched headphones were put in the bucket in the back of the plane, which smelled like burned hair and melted plastic for the rest of the flight. According to the Washington Post, the melted headphone cover and battery stuck to the floor and had to be scraped off. The passenger wasn’t seriously injured.
The Guardian reports that the incident occurred on February 19, and the ATSB believes that batteries likely caught fire during the flight.
Although the ATSB’s press release warned air travelers about the dangers of traveling with battery operated devices in general, it did not name the brand of the specific headphones that exploded.
But this isn’t the first time we’re hearing about exploding electronics. Just last year, so many Samsung Galaxy Note 7s were catching on fire that it became a federal crime to bring them on planes. (They were eventually discontinued.) Airlines also have very strict policies when it comes to bringing hoverboards on flights due to their explosion track record.
Agencies/Canadajournal
