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A Lufthansa flight carrying 461 passengers had to divert after someone’s tablet became “jammed” in a business-class seat.
The Airbus A380 took off from Los Angeles on Wednesday, bound for Munich, and had been flying for around three hours when the pilots diverted to Boston Logan International Airport.
In a statement to Business Insider, an airline spokesperson said the tablet had become “jammed in a Business Class seat” and had “already shown visible signs of deformation due to the seat’s movements” when the flight diverted. Simply Flying, which first reported the news, said the device was an iPad.
The decision to divert was taken “to eliminate any potential risk, particularly with regard to possible overheating,” the spokesperson added, saying that it was the joint decision of the crew and air traffic control.
Lithium batteries pose a safety risk if damaged, punctured, or crushed, as they can lead to thermal runaway — a chain reaction that causes the battery to overheat, possibly catching fire or exploding.
“At Lufthansa, the safety of our passengers and crew is always our top priority. The diversion was a purely precautionary measure,” the airline said.
After the flight landed in Boston, a Lufthansa Technik team then safely removed and inspected the damaged tablet, the airline said.
The flight continued and arrived in Munich on Thursday after a three-hour delay to what would have been an 11-hour transatlantic flight.
In a confined space like an aircraft cabin, a lithium battery fire poses a serious hazard to the passengers onboard.
Last year, a Breeze Airways flight from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh had to make an emergency landing in Albuquerque after a passenger’s laptop caught fire.
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