United Flight to Rome Redirected Over Lost Laptop

"Earlier this year, the possibility of a tablet bursting into flames within the cabin prompted a Lufthansa flight to make an emergency stop in Boston. This month, it was United's turn to have an international flight make a non-international emergency stop.As Ben Schlappig reports at One Mile at a Time, a flight en route from Washington, D.C. to Rome made an unexpected stop at its airport of origin."

"A passenger in the cabin who was using their laptop managed to drop it in a way that caused it to fall into the plane's cargo area. If you've flown at any time recently, you're probably aware that putting devices with lithium batteries in your checked bag is frowned upon. In an overview of flight security issues for The New York Times, Claire Fahy noted that in cases where lithium battery-powered devices are allowed to be checked, they must be turned off."

Battery fires remain a recurring aviation concern. Earlier in the year, a tablet risk prompted a Lufthansa flight to make an emergency stop in Boston. A transatlantic United Airlines flight from Washington, D.C. to Rome turned back after a passenger accidentally dropped an in-use laptop into the cargo hold. Regulations generally discourage placing lithium-battery devices in checked baggage, and permitted devices must be powered off. A laptop that entered the cargo hold while still on posed a potential fire hazard and reportedly landed in a location where extinguishing a fire would have been especially difficult. The flight arrived in Rome about four hours late.

Read at InsideHook