United Airlines flight with 157 passengers got diverted to Ireland after a laptop became stuck in a business-class seat

20.05.2024 - 11:13 / insider.com / United Airlines

A transatlantic United Airlines flight had to turn around after a business class passenger's laptop got stuck in their seat, travel news site Paddle Your Own Kanoo reported.

Sunday's flight from Zurich to Chicago diverted to Shannon, Ireland. Data from Flightradar24 shows the Boeing 767 was about 500 miles over the Atlantic Ocean when it turned around.

PYOK reported that after landing, engineers were able to free the laptop from the seat — but the flight crew had reached their maximum time on the clock, so they couldn't fly the 157 passengers onward to Chicago.

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AeroInside reported that the travelers were taken to hotels overnight.

In a statement shared with other outlets, a United spokesperson said the flight diverted to "address a potential safety risk caused by a laptop being stuck in an inaccessible location. We're working quickly to get customers to their final destination."

The aircraft was scheduled to fly from Shannon to Chicago on Monday, more than 24 hours after it landed, per Flightradar24.

United did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, sent outside normal working hours.

Laptops or phones getting wedged in a seat isn't that unusual — and airline safety videos often warn passengers about it. They can pose a safety risk because the lithium batteries can catch fire — the same reason travelers are told to pack such devices in their carry-on rather than checked luggage.

Continuing the flight over the Atlantic may have been risky because if the laptop did catch fire there wouldn't be a convenient point to land.

In March, a Breeze Airways flight from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh had to make an emergency landing after a passenger's laptop caught fire, releasing smoke into the cabin.