A Virgin Atlantic flight from New York to London had to make an emergency landing in Boston after a passenger’s faulty external battery caused a fire. The flight had to be landed in Boston because of this. The crew did extinguish the fire which was suspected to have been caused by the faulty battery charger on the A330 Airbus jet.
“Preliminary investigation suggests it is a battery pack consistent in appearance with an external phone charger,” said a spokesman for the police. The external phone charger caught on fire and forced the emergency landing of the plane.
Police bomb disposal officers had examined the aircraft after it landed and they discovered a device between the cushions of the seat which had caught fire. The airline said that it was investigating the issue. Fortunately, all 217 souls onboard were unharmed and were safely evacuated after the emerging landing in Boston along with the crew.
It’s not uncommon for lithium-ion batteries in such external chargers to fail. Sometimes they simply balloon up but don’t rupture or ignite. On some occasions, such as this, they do catch fire and airlines certainly hope that it doesn’t happen while the airplane is flying since it’s such a terrible inconvenience to their operations.
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