An iPhone spontaneously combusts on an Australian Flight

exploded iphone 4

An Australian air traveler's iPhone exploded shortly after their flight landed. The phone is said to have released heavy smoke, and emitted a red light. No one was harmed and the phone in question is being analyzed.

It sounds like there is yet another reason power off your cell phone on your next flight. Australian airline Regional Express issued a press release stating an incident involving an exploding iPhone. No one on the flight was harmed during the event that involved lots of smoke and a red glow.

Shortly after the regional flight from Lismore to Sydney landed, a passenger’s cell phone started “emitting a significant amount of dense smoke, accompanied by a red glow.” The report states that the flight attendant extinguished the red glow successfully, which implies that the glow was actually a fire, but there is no note of an open flame. A picture of the phone has been included, and it is indeed an iPhone 4.

The phone pictured appears to not only have some fire damage, but also had some damage to the back glass. Now it’s not clear how much damage was caused by the combustion, or by the flight attendant extinguishing the phone. While there may be a list of problems users of the iPhone 4 have complained about, explosion is not on the list but this isn’t the first report of an Apple iDevice exploding.

The phone in question has been given to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau for analysis. While it seems unlikely that an undamaged phone would randomly explode, it is possible, and the fact that the airline issued the press release and it didn’t come from a person seeking money from the company helps us believe the story. We have heard about an exploding Motorola Droid 2  before, but no one was hurt.

 

Showing 13 comments

  1. Gr8Music at 10:57am 29th November 2011 This is just another blatant act of Apple copying Android! Google must protect the "self destruct" IP at any cost!!
  2. Tommy Gallagher at 2:47am 29th November 2011 Factory recall? FREE STUFF!?
  3. James Phillips at 6:27am 29th November 2011 If my iPhone 4S explodes I will be severely pissed off.
  4. Matty Whitey at 9:30pm 28th November 2011 To report such an event with only money in mind would be "Un-Australian"
  5. Lucas Meyer at 5:09am 29th November 2011 I don't Like because: 1: they mostly only work with other apple products. 2: apple products are a fashion statement. 3: iphone aren't as good as the fan boys say they are. 4: low virus yes, so does any linux based system. Android.
    1. Karl William Davis at 2:14am 29th November 2011 the only real reason why apple macs have fewer viruses than microsoft PCs is that the latter are used by a vastly greater number of people than the former. just saying
      1. Ian Bell at 4:35am 29th November 2011 You are 100% correct. No one wants to hack a platform with a small number of users. There is no money in it! Simple as that.
        1. Dan Gaul at 9:12am 30th November 2011 Haha, not enough users to make money off.
  6. Greg Johnson at 3:53am 29th November 2011 Steve calling.
  7. Judy Ahrend at 3:41am 29th November 2011 You believe everything you read and what is it about apple products that some people don't like? Is it they don't play with other products And can't be controlled? Low virus invasion.
    1. Karl William Davis at 2:15am 29th November 2011 the only real reason why apple macs have fewer viruses than microsoft PCs is that the latter are used by a vastly greater number of people than the former. just saying plus, anyone who knows anything about computers knows that there's little to no real meaningful difference between a mac and a pc, apart from the operation system
  8. Robert Haston at 2:43am 29th November 2011 Epic iphail moment
  9. Aaron Timm at 2:30am 29th November 2011 Hey, now Robert Wagner has another reason to be glad he dumped Apple products and I have another reason to not ever want them.
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