A Lufthansa flight carrying 461 passengers had to turn away after someone’s tablet became “blocked” in a business class seat.
The Airbus A380 took off from Los Angeles on Wednesday, bound for Munich, and had stolen for about three hours when the pilots turned to Boston Logan International Airport.
In a statement to Business Insider, a spokesperson for the airline said that the tablet had become “blocked in a business class seat” and had already shown visible signs of deformation due to the movements of the seat “when the flight was turned away. Simply flying, which reported the new one for the first time, said the device was an iPad.
The decision to divert was made “to eliminate any potential risk, in particular with regard to the possible overheating,” added the spokesperson, saying that it was the joint decision of the crew and the control of air traffic.
Lithium batteries have a safety risk if they were damaged, perforated or crushed, as they can cause thermal running – a chain reaction that causes battery overheating, perhaps set fire or explode.
“In Lufthansa, the security of our passengers and our crew is always our absolute priority. The diversion was a purely precautionary measure,” said the airline.
After the flight landed in Boston, a team from Lufthansa Technik then removed and inspected the damaged tablet, said the airline.
The flight continued and arrived in Munich on Thursday after a three -hour delay in what would have been a transatlantic flight of 11 hours.
In a confined space as a plane cabin, a lithium battery fire represents a serious danger for passengers on board.
Last year, a flight of Breeze Airways From Los Angeles to Pittsburgh had to do an emergency landing Albuquerque After the laptop of a passenger caught fire.
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