iPhone bursts into flames during Alaska Airlines flight

Thee Alaska Airlines flight from Bellingham, Washington, to Hawaii was en route when Anna Crail’s iPhone 6 caught fire while she was watching a movie. (AP)

A woman on an Alaska Airlines flight last week was terrified when her iPhone burst into flames during a flight to Hawaii.

According to Mitch Pittman of KomoNews.com, the Alaska Airlines flight from Bellingham, Washington, to Hawaii was en route when Anna Crail’s iPhone 6 caught fire while she was watching a movie.

Crail released a statement to KomoNews.com, saying, “When it started I thought we were going down, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, there's a fire on the plane.’ All of the sudden there was like 8-inch flames coming out of my phone. And I flipped it off onto the ground and it got under someone's seat, and the flames were just getting higher and a bunch of people stood up.”

The flight was carrying 163 passengers when the fire broke out, but crew members onboard handled the situation quickly by extinguishing the flames. Unlike the recently banned hoverboards, airlines weren’t nearly as concerned about fires related to cell phones, but that could change after this incident.

Aviation expert John Nance also told KomoNews.com, “First of all, it would have to be an occurrence on a daily basis before that would ever be tolerated by the flying public. This is not the sort of situation where you have a hoverboard in the overhead, or stuffed in baggage, which is a big concern. The iPhones are almost universal on your person or right by you, so this is not something that's not going to be discovered until it's a problem.”