A mobile phone battery catching fire in an overhead carry-on bin of a packed Ryanair flight shortly before takeoff sent passengers sliding down emergency chutes in a mad scramble, The Mirror reported.
The incident took place Monday at around 5.30 p.m. on a plane sitting on the runway at Barcelona's El Prat Airport.
The flight was preparing for departure to Ibiza when a mobile phone and portable battery pack of an unidentified New Zealand man burst into flames, filling the cabin with smoke.
Dramatic footage of the fire was captured by one passenger and uploaded to Instagram.
The passenger, identified as "anthcarrio" on his Instagram profile, said he had never seen so many scared people in his life.
"Portable charger blew up in the same row as I was sitting. Everyone tries to run and all I do was put it out with water," he said.
Fast acting cabin crew oversaw an emergency evacuation and guided passengers to the inflatable slides, but frantic travelers rushed to exit the plane and tumbled down the devices.
The chaos was captured on video, again on Instagram, and fortunately no injuries were reported.
"The passengers of a flight from Barcelona to Ibiza were evacuated in an emergency at Barcelona’s El Prat Airport because of a fire in a mobile phone that was being charged with an external battery," a spokesperson for Ryanair Spain said, according to The Miror. "All the passengers were evacuated from the aircraft in a safe way to the terminal and the cabin crew took charge of the device."
A similar incident took place earlier this year on a China Southern Airlines flight to Shanghai.
Passengers were evacuated from the flight after a power bank caught fire in an overhead compartment, The New York Post reported.
Ryanair sparked controversy earlier this month when dozens of passengers on a flight from Dublin to Zadar, Croatia had to be admitted into hospital for nausea, ear pain and headaches after the cabin pressure dropped and pilots had to make an unscheduled landing in Germany.
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