Imagine that you’ve treated yourself by using your frequent flyer miles to upgrade from cramped coach to a cushy business-class seat. The move made journalist Aaron Rasmussen feel like he had scored a major win. He was sitting pretty and settling into his comfortable seat with all the bells and whistles for his long-haul trip, when his phone slipped off the armrest and disappeared into the sat. He tried to reach down and grab it, but cringed when his fingers brushed up against a bunch of metal gears and moving parts that he couldn’t see. The thought of getting his fingers mangled made him yank his hand back. Although that might seem like reason enough to not attempt to retrieve a phone that slips between the seats, there’s actually an even scarier one. Any device with a lithium-ion battery (such as a cellphone, laptop, tablet, gaming system or even an electric toothbrush) that falls into a plane seat can be damaged in the seat’s internal mechanisms. If that happens, the battery could overheat and ignite. The worst-case scenario: There’s a fire mid-flight. It has to do with a cycle of ever-increasing heat. if a battery is crushed, punctured or otherwise compromised, it can increase the probability of a chain reaction known as thermal runaway. The damaged battery gets hot. That heat releases energy, which increases heat, which releases energy and increases heat … on a loop. At some point, the battery could simply ignite. So, what should you do? Don’t force it out. Instead, notify a flight attendant right away. Crew members are well-versed in the peculiarities of different seat designs and know how to access tight spaces safely. Flight attendants often handle these precarious situations by placing the compromised item into a specialized thermal containment bag.
