United Airlines Flight With 157 Passengers Got Diverted To Ireland After A Laptop Became Stuck In A Business-class Seat
A United Airlines Boeing 767.
Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images
- A United Airlines flight was 500 miles over the Atlantic Ocean when it turned around.
- A passenger's laptop became stuck in their business class seat, Paddle Your Own Kanoo reported.
- The 157 passengers had to stay overnight in Ireland because the flight crew timed out.
A transatlantic United Airlines flight had to turn around after a business class passenger's laptop got stuck in their seat, travel news site Paddle Your Own Kanoo reported.
Sunday's flight from Zurich to Chicago diverted to Shannon, Ireland. Data from Flightradar24 shows the Boeing 767 was about 500 miles over the Atlantic Ocean when it turned around.
PYOK reported that after landing, engineers were able to free the laptop from the seat — but the flight crew had reached their maximum time on the clock, so they couldn't fly the 157 passengers onward to Chicago.
In a statement shared with Business Insider, a United spokesperson said the flight diverted to "address a potential safety risk caused by a laptop being stuck in an inaccessible location."
They added that they provided hotels for customers and arranged for an onward flight to Chicago on Monday.
The Boeing 767 is scheduled to take off from Shannon more than 24 hours after it landed, per Flightradar24.
Laptops or phones getting wedged in a seat isn't that unusual — and airline safety videos often warn passengers about it. They can pose a safety risk because the lithium batteries can catch fire — the same reason travelers are told to pack such devices in their carry-on rather than checked luggage.
Continuing the flight over the Atlantic may have been risky because if the laptop did catch fire there wouldn't be a convenient point to land.
In March, a Breeze Airways flight from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh had to make an emergency landing after a passenger's laptop caught fire, releasing smoke into the cabin.
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