iPhone 4 Combusts Spontaneously Aboard Australian Flight
Well, this is one of those unexpected, crazy stories about consumer electronics gone wild again. An iPhone 4 began spontaneously smoking and emitting a red glow while aboard an Australian airplane, specifically, the Regional Express flight ZL319, flying to its destination of Sydney. According to the airline Qantas, a passenger's iPhone began "emitting a significant amount of dense smoke, accompanied by a red glow" shortly after the flight landed, but at some point afterwards the glow was "extinguished successfully", and no one onboard was hurt or inujured.
According to the released press release, a Quantas airline flight attendant extinguished the device and "all passengers and crew on board were unharmed". The phone in question appeared to be an iPhone 4 (depicted in full, furious glory above) as opposed to the new iPhone 4S model from Apple, and has already been collected by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau as part of its investigation and further directions. We wish their investigation well.
MEDIA RELEASE
MOBILE PHONE SELF COMBUSTION
Regional Express (Rex) flight ZL319 operating from Lismore to Sydney today had an occurrence after landing, when a passenger's mobile phone started emitting a significant amount of dense smoke, accompanied by a red glow.
In accordance with company standard safety procedures, the Flight Attendant carried out recovery actions immediately and the red glow was extinguished successfully.
All passengers and crew on board were unharmed.
The matter has been reported to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) as well as the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) for investigation and directions.
The mobile phone in question appears to be an Apple iPhone (see picture below) and has been handed over to ATSB for analysis.
There haven't been many of these stories lately, about smoking gadgets, especially ones made by Apple. One can only surmise that the iPhone 4 in question was spurned by the most recent release of its predecessor, the iPhone 4S, and its ready-to-serve onboard virtual assitant, Siri. In fact, I wonder what Siri has to say about all this. Readers, what do you all think?
[via BGR]