Phoenix-bound flight forced to land after phone battery catches fire

PHOENIX — A Phoenix-bound flight was forced to make a six-hour stop after a passenger’s phone battery caught fire in the cabin last week.

The Frontier Airlines flight took off in Orlando but pilots diverted to Tampa after they learned that a fire from a lithium-ion phone battery was put out in the plane’s sink.

According to Independent, the phone caught fire during the climb and its owner knocked it on the ground before another passenger grabbed it and brought it to the sink. Both received burn injuries.

The phone was covered in ice to help cool it before emergency services in Tampa boarded the plan and recovered it.

“It was pretty scary for a few minutes with all the smoke and fumes and made you realize how fast something can happen on a plane and how little control you have of things,” Kim Gardner, a woman who claimed to be on the flight, wrote on the Aviation Herald.

During the delay in Tampa, both passengers received treatment for their burns.

“Everyone deplaned after about 25 minutes,” Patrick wrote to the Aviation Herald. “At that point I realized that it was going to be a long night. Better than an abruptly short night.”