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.

 Blackened face and neck

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.