Passenger on Australia Flight OK after iPhone4S Explodes
There was excitement aboard a Regional Express flight immediately after its landing in Sydney late last week, when a passenger’s iPhone4S exploded, but no one was hurt.
Phone Began Emitting Smoke and ‘Red Glow’
Early media reports indicated the explosion took place in mid-flight, but such was not the case according to a news release from the Australia-based low cost carrier known as ‘Rex.’ The airline explained that the phone started “emitting a significant amount of dense smoke, accompanied by a red glow.”
Flight Attendant Takes Action
An alert flight attendant immediately carried out “recovery actions” and the red glow was put out on the spot. It is not known if the glow came from a flame, or what specific recovery actions were taken, but there were no reports of drenched passengers exiting the plane.
Rex corporate communications spokespeople are referring to the incident as a case of “mobile phone self-combustion.”
Airline Pilots Get iPads in Cockpits
The matter was turned over to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau for investigation, and those authorities have the phone as well, which appears to be cracked in several places and some of the casing looks as if it had melted.
There have been scattered reports of various brands of cell phones exploding over the past few years (and you can even watch a YouTube video of a purported phone explosion), but verification of such stories is hard to come by.
