Smoking smartphone sparks emergency evacuation of Alaska Airlines jet, two taken to hospital

Passengers escaped an Alaska Airlines jet via emergency slides on Monday night after a malfunctioning smartphone filled the cabin with smoke. The pilot ordered the evacuation of flight 751 from New Orleans to Seattle after someone's cellphone started to spit out sparks and smoke just after landing. As the aircraft was still …

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, for the good old days

When batteries just corroded. Although, to be fair, that corrosion was just a slow form of burning.

[JWLong]

Re: Ah, for the good old days

Yeah, but you didn't need a 3200 degree containment bag for them.

Qudo's to Alaska Airlines for being prepared and staff for being fast thinking.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Ah, for the good old days

That's "kudos", it means "praise" and is not a plural. Like "congratulations".

[ICL1900-G3]

Re: Ah, for the good old days

And in any case, as has been pointed out many times, you don't use apostrophes to make plurals!!!!!

[A.P. Veening]

Re: Ah, for the good old days

And in any case, as has been pointed out many times, you don't use apostrophes to make plurals!!!!!

Correct for English, I know of at least one language where you do in some cases (singular ending in "a", "o" or "u").

[jgarbo]

Re: Ah, for the good old days

Remind me, which language are we using? It seems your pedantry is superfluous.

[rcxb1]

Re: Ah, for the good old days

I thought he was sending the flight crew free rings/jewelery:

https://www.edmondsjewellers.com/qudo

[batfink]

Re: Ah, for the good old days

I used to have a box that ran Qudos...

[JWLong]

I want to know.......

Which $1,000 phone with the $1.00 battery in it caught on fire.

[DS999]

Re: I want to know.......

I read somewhere that most phone battery fires aboard planes were the result of the phone getting stuck in the seat which is then reclined or brought upright, or kept in a bag that's pushed with too much force under the seat or in the overhead compartment (the latter probably by some jackass who boards the plane after you and tries to cram his bag into a too small area, so never leave your phone, tablet, laptop, etc. in an overhead compartment!)

If it was damaged, it doesn't really matter what phone it was. Though even without damage, everyone phone is a potential fire waiting to happen since while we are quite good at manufacturing lithium batteries, we aren't able to do so with 100% success even when not cutting corners to make one of the super cheap third party batteries you can find on Amazon and eBay.

[David Lawton]

Re: I want to know.......

I believe it was surprise surprise a Samsung again, a Samsung A21 https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/24/samsung-galaxy-a21-plane-fire/

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Re: I want to know.......

Which $1,000 phone with the $1.00 battery (That's sold as an authorised service centre spare for 30 - 50 times its price as a OEM replacement) in it caught on fire.

FTFY

[Anonymous Coward]

Absent apostrophes

> The bags Alaska uses come in two sizes: a smaller one on the flight deck for the pilots' electronics, and a larger bag for the passengers.

And that, kids, is why apostrophes matter.

[Joe W]

Re: Absent apostrophes

They wrote it was a larger bag, so maybe... just in case a pace maker or something starts to burn?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Absent apostrophes

A pacemaker? They tend to be surgically implanted so would need a considerably bigger bag…

[ChrisElvidge]

Re: Absent apostrophes

Or too many?

See Qudo's above!

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Absent apostrophes

Could they not make an even bigger bag, large enough for say, a burning engine?

Then it would simply be a case of popping out onto the wing, quickly stuffing the engine in the bag, and back in time for tea and medals...

[aregross]

Impressive!

"The bags can withstand temperatures up to 3,200°F (1,760°C), come with heat resistant gloves to handle a burning device, and can be sealed into an airtight pocket to prevent a fire from getting out of hand and spreading."

[Timbo]

Re: Impressive!

Indeed....but what worries me is that a fire from a Lithium battery can apparently sustain itself, without the need for Oxygen.

So, putting a smoking battery in a bag might stop the battery from "using up" any Oxygen in the cabin...but it won't stop the battery fire and it would continue to produce smoke (from the fire).

This will then result in the bag getting bigger, as the smoke fills the available space. And one assumes there will come a point when the bag will explode due to the internal pressure ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The crew acted swiftly using fire extinguishers and a battery containment bag to stop the phone from smoking,"

I remember the good ol' days when the stewardess would just give a stern look and say "Sir, the no-smoking light is lit."

[Anonymous Coward]

Re "No smoking"

Or the even-better old days when the "No Smoking" light occasionally went out

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Re "No smoking"

The stewardess on the old Malaysian Airways used to hand round cigarettes as the aircraft ran up its engines before take-off.

[Peter D]

Re: Re "No smoking"

I remember flying on Olympic to Athens in the 80s. The stewardess had an ashtray on the food cart and puffed away while serving. I think smoking was compulsory in Greece at the time.

[cornetman]

Re: Re "No smoking"

God, I can't even imagine that. I'm not a great flyer but doing it in a cloud of second hand smoke would have been indescribable :(

I suppose that comes from a time when most people smoked and it wouldn't have seemed like a problem.

[Neil Barnes]

There was nothing good about the no smoking light going out.

Nothing against smoking provide it's done where it doesn't affect people who like to breathe. As the old poster had it: Smoke is the unpleasant end product of your habit. I like drinking beer: would you like the end product of that forced upon you?

[Commswonk]

I like drinking beer: would you like the end product of that forced upon you?

There are, I understand, some people who will pay good money for that sort of thing.

For the avoidance of doubt I am not one of them...

[Piro]

Would you like the cheap macrobrew golden shower, or the craft microbrewery golden shower?

[Agamemnon]

Well, I just coffee showered my keyboard.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Neil Barnes

And I have nothing against non smokers flying as long as it doesn't affect people who like to breathe whilst living on a planet that isn't suffering from global warming. Oh, hang on….

[Neil Barnes]

but... but... I fly a foot-launched ultra-light glider (by official definition!). No fuel involved.

(er, apart from getting there... but I'm predicting my sport will disappear in ten to twenty years anyway, simply because the air is getting more and more active as more an more energy is pumped into it.)

[clyde666]

batteries

I would love to know what good Android phone I can buy today which features replaceable batteries.

Especially important that said replacement batteries are actually available.

[Helstrom]

Re: batteries

My wife just got a Samsung XCover Pro. Not only does it have replaceable batteries but it can also take a few drops (my wife is rather clumsy...) and it's on the cheaper side as well.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: batteries

+1 for the Xcover pro. It's also water resistant, has USB-C, and has a 1/8" headphone jack.

Camera kind of sucks, but that's not a big deal for me.

[trueknight]

perhaps nobody told the phone that smoking wasn't allowed on planes . . . . . .

[Timbo]

damn....so you are not allowed to smoke cigarettes on planes and now you cannot smoke mobile phones... ;-)

[MachDiamond]

Picking on Boeing again

The battery issues on the 787 were caused by a supplier to Boeing, Boeing didn't make those batteries. Boeing also doesn't make aircraft engines but they still get the blame if something goes wrong with them. They certainly not angels, but it makes little sense to blame them for the things that they don't control.

Tesla doesn't make batteries, but after a suspicious fire in China, they were awfully quick with a software patch. So quick that the car hadn't even been removed or examined which is a bit dodgy in my opinion.