Photo: Headphone batteries explode on flight to Australia

According to Australian officials, on Wednesday, March 15, 2017,
a lady whose headphones caught fire on an airplane had suffered burns to her
face and hands, and they also cautioned on the use of battery-operated devices on-board.

The traveller was listening to music on her own
battery-operated headphones and later dozed off, about 2 hours into the trip
from Beijing to Melbourne, on February 19, 2017, then suddenly there was a loud
bang.

“As I went to turn
around I felt burning on my face,” she told the Australian Transport Safety
Bureau (ATSB) which investigated the incident.

“I just grabbed my
face which caused the headphones to go around my neck. I continued to feel
burning so I grabbed them off and threw them on the floor.

“They were sparking
and had small amounts of fire.”

Flight attendants were said to have rushed to help and
poured a bucket of water on the headphones, but the battery and its cover had
both melted and stuck to the floor.

Pictures show the woman, whose name was not mentioned, with a blackened face and neck and blisters on her hands.

Other passengers had to tolerate the smell of melted
plastic, burnt electronics and scorched hair for the rest of the flight.

“People were coughing
and choking the entire way home,” the woman added.

The transport safety
bureau, which did not identify the airline or brand of headphones involved ni
the incident, said the lithium-ion batteries in the device likely caught fire.

“As the range of
products using batteries grows, the potential for in-flight issues increases,”
it said, adding that such devices needed to be stored safely if they were not
being used.

Spare batteries
should be kept in carry-on luggage, and not checked in, the bureau added.

The ATSB’s Stuart Godley alleged that it was the first
report of headphones catching fire in Australia, however, there have been a
number of other phone and device battery occasions.

Recall that many airlines in 2016, barred all Samsung Galaxy
Note 7 smartphones over fire risk concerns, following reports of explosions
caused by lithium-ion batteries.

The manufacturer, South Korean electronics giant, Samsung, a
great company in terms of innovation and quality, was mandated to recall all
its Note 7s, costing it loss of billions of dollars.

Lithium-ion batteries are used for handheld electronics
because of their considerable amount of energy it pack for their weight.