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Phone Battery Catches Fire Aboard Delta Air Lines Flight

By
Talia Avakian
Talia Avakian
and
Travel + Leisure
Travel + Leisure
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Talia Avakian
Talia Avakian
and
Travel + Leisure
Travel + Leisure
Down Arrow Button Icon
September 16, 2016, 2:17 PM ET
Photograph by Joe Raedle Getty Images

This story was originally published on TravelandLeisure.com.

A cell phone battery caught fire aboard a Delta Air Lines flight on Friday morning, The Virginia-Pilot reported.

The flight—from Norfolk, Virginia, to Atlanta, Georgia—had just taken off when flight attendants and passengers noticed smoke.

“It wasn’t a big flaming fire, it was more smoldering smoke,” passenger Kristi Parrotte told the paper.

Flight attendants, as well as some quick-thinking passengers, attempted to douse the fire with bottled water while asking passengers in the affected area to move to the front of the plane.

The attendants said the battery that caught fire was not attached to a phone and it was not clear who owned it, according to Kerry Dougherty, a columnist for The Virginian-Pilot who was on the flight.

You never appreciate flight attendants till there's a fire in the cabin. #delta#professionals#oxfordbound#GOREBS

— kerry dougherty (@kerrydougherty) September 16, 2016

It is also unclear what type of battery—and in what type of phone—it was.

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There have been a handful of instances of phones catching fire on aircrafts, and the Federal Aviation Administration has warned passengers not to charge or use Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones while on airplanes.

Travelers boarding this Delta flight were told to keep their Samsung Galaxy 7 phones turned off and not to charge them, and everyone was told to turn off all of their phones once the fire occurred.

For more about the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 recall, watch:

“We all made the comment that we see this kind of stuff on the news, but we’ve never seen this in person,” Parrotte said.

There were no injuries, however there was some damage to the seats, according to witnesses. The flight landed without additional incident.

“Safety is always Delta’s top priority,” the airline said in a statement.

About the Authors
By Talia Avakian
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By Travel + Leisure
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