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Air passengers in the United States have been warned not to use Samsung smartphones after they have been found to explode.
The phones in question are Samsung’s new Galaxy Note 7. The South Korean tech-giant ordered a global recall of the phones last week, after numerous confirmed reports of the battery catching fire and exploding.
In an extremely rare step, the The Federal Aviation Administration has asked passengers not to turn on or charge their Note 7s in-flight or even put them in their checked bags.
The warning is not without good reason however. Some of the explosions have caused serious damage, such as for one family in Florida, whose Jeep was destroyed by the fire caused by the phone. The battery the phone uses is a lithium battery, which are more susceptible to overheating than other types.
What makes lithium battery fires particularly dangerous is that water cannot always stop them, with flames often reappearing after being quenched. The UN’s Civil Aviation Organisation banned bulk shipments of lithium batteries on passenger planes due to fears that planes could be destroyed by such fires.
