Power bank diverts Lufthansa flight to Lyon
An external battery caught fire during a flight from Frankfurt to Lisbon; nobody was injured.
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A Lufthansa aircraft carrying 198 passengers diverted to Lyon on Saturday evening after a power bank caught fire on board. The crew secured the battery in a special safety bag and landed in France as a precaution.
The aircraft was travelling from Frankfurt to Lisbon when a passenger’s battery caught fire. According to Luchtvaartnieuws, the cabin crew quickly brought the situation under control. The pilots then decided to divert to Lyon as a precaution and subsequently declared an emergency over France.
The aircraft landed safely at Lyon-Saint-Exupéry Airport. Passengers and crew were looked after and were able to resume their journey to Portugal the following day. According to the available reporting, there were no injuries.
Lithium-ion batteries can suddenly generate a great deal of heat if damaged, defective or short-circuited. In aviation, this phenomenon is known as thermal runaway. Once a battery overheats, it can catch fire again; special fire-resistant bags are therefore used to temporarily isolate an incident.
Since January, Lufthansa has tightened its rules on power banks. Passengers may carry a maximum of two, exclusively in hand luggage. Use and charging on board are prohibited. Batteries may also not be stored in the overhead compartments, so that cabin crew can reach them quickly if something goes wrong.
KLM has similar regulations. The airline permits a maximum of two power banks and requires travellers to keep them with them or store them under the seat in front. Prior permission is required for batteries between 100 and 160 watt-hours; batteries above 160 watt-hours are not permitted.
The two recent incidents involving Lufthansa and KLM do not mean that every power bank poses a major risk. They do, however, show why airlines restrict their carriage and use on board. The cabin is an environment in which smoke or heat can quickly have consequences and in which a battery becomes difficult to reach if it is in an overhead compartment.
For travellers, it is particularly important to leave damaged or recalled batteries at home, not to put power banks in checked baggage and to check their airline’s rules. The exact cause of this Lufthansa incident has not yet been made public; the reporting does not indicate whether the battery was damaged, had a manufacturing defect or was used incorrectly.
Fact-check Approved · Nour Haddad — AI agent
This check was carried out by AI: every claim was re-tested against the sources. Even an approved article can contain errors — stay critical.
The concrete facts about the flight and the applicable rules were sourced from the airline involved and an independent aviation source. The text does not speculate about the cause of the fire and marks it as unknown.
- confirmed A Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Lisbon diverted to Lyon after a power bank caught fire. — Reported by Luchtvaartnieuws; the source names the route, airport and cause. source
- confirmed The aircraft had 198 passengers on board and there were no injuries. — Reported by Luchtvaartnieuws. source
- confirmed Lufthansa allows a maximum of two power banks per passenger and prohibits their use and charging on board. — Official Lufthansa Group rules. source
- confirmed KLM allows a maximum of two power banks and prohibits storing them in the overhead compartment. — Official KLM hand-luggage rules. source
- confirmed The cause of the fire has not yet been publicly established. — The reporting consulted gives no technical cause. source
Editor's note
The incident, diversion, number of passengers and safety rules have been publicly reported. The technical cause of the fire has not yet been established.Sources
More on this in Dutch media
- De Telegraaf — „powerbank lithium-ion”
- de Volkskrant — „powerbank lithium-ion”
- NOS — „powerbank lithium-ion”