I wonder if AppleCare covers this.
Australian Regional airline Regional Express (Rex) has confirmed an incident that occurred on a Lismore to Sydney flight Friday, during which an iPhone became unstable and- for lack of a better catchall term- apparently exploded during the journey. While that description may call up images of a blast and subsequent fire explosion, reports indicate the iPhone began to “emit a glow” and started smoking before it shattered. Rex explained the incident in a statement about the iPhone explosion:
“In accordance with company standard safety procedures, the flight attendant carried out recovery actions immediately and the red glow was extinguished successfully. All passengers and crew on board were unharmed.”
The incident, though somewhat amusing and scary in equal measures, is a rare but not entirely uncommon phenomenon in which lithium batteries overheat and create the risk of fire. It’s happened before with Apple products, and there was an iPod Nano recall a few years back for similar overheating-related issues- and back in 2009, a French teen claimed an iPhone exploded while he was speaking on it, sending shards of glass from the display flying everywhere. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) as well as the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) are investigating this latest incident, and it has not been confirmed which model of the iPhone was involved.
As for the iPhone exploding on the flight, Apple has not commented directly on the situation thusfar. Apple is not the only company to be subject to such claims- Dell and Hewlett-Packard products have come in for similar complaints in the past surrounding overheating devices.