A computer grounded a flight — and it wasn’t one of the control tower’s.
A transatlantic United Airlines flight had to be diverted to Ireland on Sunday when a passenger’s laptop became trapped in a seat, raising safety concerns.
The mile-high mishap reportedly occurred aboard United Flight 12 as it was traveling from Zurich, Switzerland to Chicago, Illinois, a View From The Wing reported.
The trip went south after a business class passenger’s personal computer became lodged in a seat, prompting crew members to try and extract it, but to no avail.
That’s when the pilot decided to divert the Boeing 767 — not because of the inconvenience to the passenger, but rather due to the threat posed by the device’s flammable lithium-ion batteries.
Their logic was that catastrophe could ensue should the computer ignite while it was inaccessible and the plane was flying over the Atlantic — like an inadvertent improvised explosive device.
So, with the plane around 500 miles out over the ocean, the flyboy turned it around and headed for Shannon, Ireland, touching down safely nearly four hours after the initial departure.
“United flight 12 scheduled from Zurich to Chicago landed safely in Shannon to address a potential safety risk caused by a laptop being stuck in an inaccessible location,” the airline wrote in a statement.
Upon landing, engineers managed to retrieve the device.
Unfortunately, by that time, the flight crew had logged their maximum time on the clock, meaning that the plane’s 157 passengers were unable to fly to Chicago that day, Business Insider reported.
They were instead provided hotel rooms for the night for their impromptu layover. Meanwhile United claimed they are “working quickly to get customers to their final destination.”
The flight was last scheduled to fly from Shannon to Chicago, more than 24 hours after touching down in the Irish city.
This flight diversion might seem overzealous however combustive batteries have sparked onboard blazes on numerous occasions.
In July, a United Airlines flight made an emergency landing in California early Tuesday after an external battery pack caught fire mid-trip.
