Portable charger bursts into flames on China Southern Airlines flight to Shanghai
Fortunately, a flight attendant with a bottle of water was there to save the day
As travelers were boarding a Southern Airlines flight from Guangzhou to Shanghai on Sunday, a piece of luggage placed in the overhead baggage compartment suddenly caught fire.
Cell phone video footage from the scene shows a flight attendant splashing the fire with water from a bottle before simply chucking the bottle at the fiery luggage, seeming to successfully extinguish the flames. A passenger then asks the flight attendant to hand him a bottle of what appears to be orange juice, which he also splashes over the smoky baggage.
Passengers were forced to get off the plane and had to wait for 3 hours before a new plane was found to take them to Shanghai.
China Southern Airlines released a statement on Weibo, explaining that the fire had been caused by a portable charger, powered by a lithium-ion battery, inside of the passenger’s luggage. The charger was reportedly not in use when it caught fire.
The passenger was kept in Guangzhou to help police investigate the fire.
This comes about a month after a number of Chinese airlines finally decided to let passengers start using mobile phones and devices on flights once again, following a rather bizarre ban, instituted in August 2016.
Lithium-ion batteries have been known to catch fire and are not allowed inside passengers’ checked luggage. However, they are, of course, permitted to be carried on to flights — where if a fire breaks out there’s nothing really to worry about because of brave flight attendants armed with bottles of water and orange juice.
