Exchanged Galaxy Note 7 catches fire in plane

An owner-swapped Galaxy Note 7 from Samsung has caught fire in an American plane. The plane was still at the gate and has been evacuated. It was a version of the smartphone declared safe by Samsung.

A “thick green-gray smoke” came out of the device, the owner tells tech site The Verge. According to the tech site, it was an exchanged Galaxy Note 7. The owner had returned his first copy after Samsung launched a worldwide recall due to the risk of explosion of the smartphone battery. A photo of the box shows the black square that identifies the safe-declared Note 7s.

The owner claims that at the request of the plane’s crew, he turned off his device and put it in his pocket, after which the smartphone started to smoke. Then he dropped it on the floor. Ultimately, the device would have burned through the carpet of the plane.

Samsung has not yet commented on the incident. While there have been at least hundreds of known cases of explosions involving Note 7s from the hazardous batch worldwide, there is no known record of previous incidents involving exchanged units.

The manufacturer wants to release the safe version of the Note 7 in the near future. It is unknown when exactly that will happen.