Why did a smartphone cause a British Airways seat fire?

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• Pablo says:

  25 Apr25 April 08:21

  Must have been a burner phone.

  • Will A says:

    26 Apr26 April 00:26

    Lol

• N says:

  25 Apr25 April 08:28

  I ended up getting v v v v familiar with the inner workings of a BA 787 F seat after losing my wedding ring down the side on the way back from my honeymoon.

  Full marks to the engineers who spent half an hour taking the seat apart at LHR first thing on a Monday morning to retrieve the ring… Those seats are unbelievably complex.

  Also thanks to the flight and cabin crew who were held back on the plane by this search… We ended up getting the crew bus back to terminal, which was very different!

  • Alex Sm says:

    25 Apr25 April 10:31

    Why were you so keen to take off your ring so soon after the honeymoon?

    • N says:

      25 Apr25 April 11:34

      Ha!

      Quite.

      • meta says:

        25 Apr25 April 11:39

        Some people can’t wear a ring overnight when sleeping as their finger gets swollen. My partner is the same.

        • Catalan says:

          25 Apr25 April 12:10

          Perhaps your partner needs to see a doctor? Surely that shouldn’t be happening regularly.

        • Sadly True says:

          25 Apr25 April 12:37

          Or have sensitive skin like I have, whereby the pressure of the ring causes discomfort and makes getting to sleep difficult. The ring made of a hypoallergenic material so that is not the problem.
          I also find wearing a watch or a wrist band unbearable after a couple of hours for the same reason.

• mr_jetlag says:

  25 Apr25 April 08:34

  it’s the side gap between the armrest and seat where this seems to happen the most, as well as ( in J ) the gap between seat back and cushion on flatbeds. Not sure any seat design will ever eliminate the risk.

• mark2 says:

  25 Apr25 April 08:58

  Those seats can be dangerous!
  I once went to change before we landed in Vancouver (F on A380) and the FA changed my bed back to seat, not realising that one of my shoes was under the seat. Given bottle of Lanson pink champagne and agreement to pay for new shoes. Surprisingly difficult to buy mid-range shoes in Canada – either CAD 600 (English) or CAD 95. Actually minor damage repaired by local cobbler at home for £8.50.

• Stephen says:

  25 Apr25 April 09:02

  How about if the seat could only be controlled by an app on the passenger’s device?!!!! Obviously downsides as would technically annoying but would make it less likely for devices to become trapped!

• Chris says:

  25 Apr25 April 09:09

  An old Lexus I had some leather wrapped foam attached to the centre console that ran the length of the seat. They were rigid enough to stop things falling into the gap. Simple solution; just stitched on.

  The New CW seats presumably address this by having proper storage; and having lids over it

• Charley Whiskey says:

  25 Apr25 April 09:39

  If this reported case was in BA Club with their previous awful seat the chances of it happening would be so much higher due to the totally ridiculous lack of safe and convenient storage space. Susan has it right: provide a convenient, accessible and inherently safe charging and storage area when designing the seat. Won’t stop all such incidents but would certainly reduce them.

  • Venturelog says:

    25 Apr25 April 10:44

    +1

• Nick says:

  25 Apr25 April 09:40

  BA engineers did redesign the CW seat when the 787s came in to make it harder for phones to fall into the mechanism – this is why the seat covering is different from those on the 777, for example. But it’s impossible to design a seat with the moveable features customers want without there being some room for the mechanism to work.

  But what I find most interesting is that the report puts the onus on manufacturers to change design, but makes no mention at all of the responsibility on idiot customers to a) make sure it doesn’t fall in, and b) pay attention to the safety briefing (and TOD announcements by crew) making it clear how dangerous it is. Sign of the times I suppose.

  • meta says:

    25 Apr25 April 11:55

    +1 If the crew warns you not to charge when you’re sleeping, then you don’t.

  • RichS says:

    25 Apr25 April 13:04

    Unfortunately not just a sign of current times – how long has smoking on planes been banned, but they are still required to provide ashtrays in the toilets because they know people will break the rules? Nothing new about some people thinking the rules don’t apply to them.

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