A United flight u-turned over the Atlantic coast when a passengers laptop fell through a gap into the planes hold

• A United Airlines flight to Italy returned to Washington, DC, earlier this month.

• Someone’s laptop acquired caught down a sidewall of the aircraft, according to an ATC recording.

• Airlines take misplaced or hard-to-access devices like laptops very critically due to the risk of fire.

A aircraft going from Washington, DC, to Italy turned a flight to nowhere after a passenger’s laptop went lacking on board.

United Airlines Flight 126 took off from Washington Dulles International Airport on October 15. It was sure for Rome, often up to 9 hours away.

But just one hour into the journey, the Boeing 767 U-turned over the Atlantic Ocean. It was only about 50 miles off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, per data from Flightradar24.

An audio recording revealed by LiveATC.internet and uploaded to YouTube seems to show the cause for the diversion.

“We have a minor situation here with a passenger who has somehow dropped a laptop down the sidewall into the cargo pit of the airplane,” one of the pilots tells air site visitors control.

“We don’t know the status of it, we can’t access it, we can’t see it,” he added. “So our determination is to return to Dulles and discover this laptop before we will continue over the ocean.”

An airline spokesperson told Business Insider the flight diverted “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.”

The aircraft landed back at Washington Dulles shortly after midnight local time, just over two hours after taking off from there.

“Maintenance crews retrieved the laptop, inspected the aircraft and the flight later departed for Rome,” the spokesperson added.

Flightradar24 data reveals it took off at 3:23 a.m. and in the end reached Rome over 4 hours behind schedule.

As laptops include lithium batteries, they pose a potential fire risk.

If overcharged or broken, it might probably consequence in thermal runaway, main to fast temperature increase.

And because the laptop was inaccessible, the crew may not know if it had been broken or caught fire until it was too late.

That’s the same cause airways require electronics to be carried in your carry-on reasonably than your checked baggage.

This is not the first time a trapped system has compelled a diversion.

In 2024, another transatlantic United Airlines flight diverted to Ireland after a laptop acquired caught in a business-class seat.

And this April, a Lufthansa flight from Los Angeles to Munich modified course to Boston after a passenger’s pill acquired caught in their seat.

This yr has also seen many airways tighten their energy bank guidelines.

“There has been a significant growth in customers using power banks in recent years, resulting in an increasing number of lithium battery-related incidents on board flights across the wider aviation industry,” Emirates said.

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