A plane was reportedly forced to land because of a fire risk when a ‘laptop fell into the cargo hold’.
The incident involved United Airlines flight UA126 which was travelling from Washington Dulles to Rome Fiumicino on October 15.
Less than an hour into the flight, the pilots flagged an issue to air traffic control.
They explained how a passenger had dropped their laptop down the side of the fuselage, into the cargo hold, and was not reachable, One Mile At A Time reports.
Due to it disappearing and concerns of electronics causing fires on flights, the pilots decided to return back to Washington.
The particular spot where the tech had fallen was also not covered by the fire suppression system.
Just two hours and 13 minutes after the plane departed, it returned to the hub and set back off three hours later.
The incident involved United Airlines flight UA126 which was travelling from Washington Dulles to Rome Fiumicino on October 15 (stock)
It landed at its final destination, Rome, at 5.26pm, some four hours later than the original arrive time.
A recording of the conversation between air traffic control and the aircraft was revealed on You can see ATC’s YouTube channel.
‘Unfortunately, we’re gonna have to get a clearance to return to Dulles. We have a minor situation here with a passenger who has someone dropped a laptop, that was on, down the sidewall into the cargo pit area of the airplane,’ the pilot says.
‘We don’t know the status of it. We can’t access it. We can’t see it. So our decision is to return to Dulles and find this laptop before we can continue over the ocean.’
He then goes on to explain how his request to return to Washington was ‘precautionary’.
‘Due to the lithium battery in the cargo area where it’s actually not even near the suppression system that we have for fires down there,’ he adds before rerouting.
A United Airlines spokesperson told the Daily Mail: ‘On October 15, United flight 126 safely returned to Dulles International Airport as a precaution to retrieve a customer’s laptop that had fallen behind a cabin wall panel and through a small gap leading to the cargo hold.
‘Maintenance crews retrieved the laptop, inspected the aircraft and the flight later departed for Rome.’
Just less than an hour into the flight, the pilots flagged an issue to air traffic control. They explained how a passenger had dropped their laptop down the side of the fuselage, into the cargo hold, and was not reachable (stock)
Earlier this year, another United Airlines flight travelling from the USA to China was forced to make a diversion and land in San Francisco after the pilot realised they didn’t have their passport with them.
Flight UA198, which had 257 passengers onboard, left Los Angeles International Airport at 2pm local time on Saturday March 22.
The plane was headed on a 13-and-a-half-hour flight to Shanghai but was forced to make a U-turn just two hours into the journey.
It landed in San Francisco just before 5pm, with data from FlightRadar24 showing that the flight started to travel over the Pacific Ocean before turning around.
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Plane forced to land over fire risk as ‘laptop falls into cargo hold’
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