Alaska Airlines evacuated plane after phone caught fire

A cell phone caught fire in the cabin of an Alaska Airlines flight that landed in Seattle from New Orleans on Monday evening. The phone was a Samsung Galaxy A21, Port of Seattle spokesperson Perry Cooper said. Seattle weather.

“After digging a lot, I can tell you the phone has been burnt beyond recognition,” Cooper said in an email to Seattle weather. “However, in an interview with one of our Seattle Port Police officers, the passenger said the phone was a Samsung Galaxy A21. Again, we couldn’t confirm this by looking at the remains of the device.

Samsung did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Verge.

Alaska Airlines spokesperson recounts The edge that the aircraft crew used fire extinguishers and a battery containment bag to “keep the phone from smoking.” The passengers were evacuated from the plane via the evacuation slides “due to foggy conditions inside the cabin”, and two of them were treated at a local hospital, the spokesperson said. . A Twitter user who said they were on the flight described the cabin as “like a smoke machine.”

The passengers were taken by bus to the terminal, according to a tweet from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, and two passengers were treated at a local hospital, the Alaska Airlines spokesperson said.

While the situation may be reminiscent of Samsung’s recall of the Galaxy Note 7 for fear of battery explosion, it is not yet clear whether there is some sort of flaw common with any model of the A21. There have been numerous isolated incidents of telephone battery fires in many different brands. As to why these batteries can catch fire, here is our explanation on why it happens.