Video of overheated laptop causing a small fire on board Lufthansa Boeing 747-8 has appeared on social media

On Monday 26 December, a Lufthansa Boeing 747-8 (registered D-ABYJ) that operated a flight between Los Angeles, United States and Frankfurt, Germany was forced to make a precautionary landing at Chicago O’Hare after an overheated laptop caused a small fire in the passenger cabin. A short video of the incident went viral. Two flight attendants were treated for smoke inhalation. 

The flight attendants swiftly took action and applied a fire extinguisher squeeze inside the bin and closed it again to smother the fire. The video went viral on social media and was highly commented on A Fly Guy’s Cabin Crew Lounge, a crew community on Facebook.

Keyboard terrorists were quick to give their comment about the video: they should have used personal protective equipment! Easier said than done: fire on board while flying at 35,000 feet – however very rare – remains a frighting situation for passengers and crew.

Jay Robert (Fly Guy) commented on his Facebook page: “While I love to see so many of you putting your safety training to play here in the comment section I need to remind you that airline procedures and equipment are NOT the same at all airlines. What might be right at your airline might be wrong at another. What matters is the outcome and all were safe. Also, it’s easy for us to play the expert watching from our screens but please allow me to remind you of all the mistakes we all make in training when our adrenaline starts pumping and we go into survival mode.

If we make those mistakes in a controlled environment, imagine what you are going to do in a real situation when we are protecting lives. So let’s commend our colleagues here for a job well done. They risked their lives and safety to protect their passengers and we should consider them heroes just like any firefighters that protect the public. Thanks for always being #UnitedByWings.”