Botched Repair Likely Cause of Combusting iPhone After Flight

aesoteric writes "The combustion of an Apple iPhone 4 after a regional flight in Australia was likely caused by a botched repair of the handset by an unauthorized repairer, according to air safety investigators in the U.S. and Australia. A small metal screw had been misplaced in the battery bay of the handset. The screw punctured the battery casing and caused an internal short circuit, making the iPhone emit dense smoke (PDF)."

Comments

Re:Waiting for facts

[NixieBunny]

The TSA won't do that. The TSA won't do anything to prevent business travelers from bringing their phones or laptops on board, since they would soon go out of business if they had to.

The fact that they allow lithium-ion batteries on board at all is rather startling from a safety perspective, considering how easy it is to make them emit smoke. In fact, you are only allowed to bring these batteries into the passenger compartment, NOT the cargo compartment, so that a flight attendant may extinguish the fire.

I'll be happy to share my lithium-ion battery/TSA story with you upon request.