TRAVELLERS are being warned about taking a popular everyday item on board flights.
Earlier this week, a Swiss International Air Lines flight was diverted to Bangor in Maine, America, due to smoke in the cabin.
The smoke came from a damaged headphone charging case, which had fallen between the seats and become stuck, causing it to overheat.
The plane had come from Zurich in Switzerland and was heading for JFK Airport in New York.
According to the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) incidents involving lithium batteries – which are found in headphone charging cases, as well as power banks – are on the rise.
Any items with lithium batteries have to go in hand luggage.
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These include:
- Power banks
- Vapes
- Bluetooth speakers
- Electric fans
- Fitness and smartwatches
- Digital cameras
- Wireless headphones & charging cases
- Tablets
- E-readers
- Laptops
The CAA has warned that if any of these cause an issue during a flight, such as overheating or starting to smoke, you should notify a member of the cabin crew as quickly as possible.
If these items aren’t packed correctly, such as in your hold luggage and not your hand luggage, there could be flight delays or cancellations as a result.
Back in May, an easyJet flight had to divert when a passenger informed crew during the flight that the portable charger was in the hold of the aircraft.
The flight was then forced to land in Rome, Italy, instead of reaching its destination, London Luton.
The CAA previously commented: “Passenger awareness remains low – over a third (36 per cent) of travellers are unaware of the dangers of packing batteries in checked baggage, even though 92 per cent fly with a mobile phone, 55 per cent with a laptop and 49 per cent with a power bank – suggesting hundreds of batteries could be incorrectly packed on a typical flight.”
According to the CAA, there are around two lithium battery incidents every week – and often, these incidents cause delays as well as diversions.