Many of us have experienced the horror that comes with witnessing our phone disappear down the side of a car or aircraft seat, as well as the struggle to retrieve it. But imagine the embarrassment of one passenger aboard a long-haul Air France flight when the plane was forced to turn around and return to its departure point because of her lost device.
Flight AF750 from Paris Orly to Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe, had completed only around 11% of its nine-hour journey on 21 March 2025 and had just left the English Channel heading over the Hexagon’s west coast, when the unfortunate passenger informed crew members that a mobile phone was missing. AirNav radar data shows the aircraft circled probably while attempts to locate the phone were made, but the search efforts yielded no results.
An Air France flight had to return home last week after a passenger lost a mobile phone on board. pic.twitter.com/GQknT0WgaP
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) March 28, 2025
It may seem that the lost device should have been the individual passenger’s problem. However, various outlets are reporting that the plane’s 374 other passengers had to be inconvenienced due to fears that the phone was stuck somewhere inside the Boeing 777-300ER’s cabin furniture, and that its lithium-ion battery could overheat and cause a fire. Air France have not confirmed this reasoning at the time of writing.
Lithium-ion batteries, which revolutionised consumer electronics by allowing devices to be frequently recharged and won a Nobel Prize for their inventors in 2019, have caused a number of aviation safety incidents around the world. Two fatal cargo plane crashes occurred after battery fires in the early 2010s, in 2024 the number of battery overheating incidents recorded by the US Federal Aviation Authority was as high as three per fortnight. South Korea banned lithium-ion batteries after a January 2025 fire on an Air Busan flight, and both Thai Airlines and Hong Kong’s Civil Aviation Department have banned battery packs.
A burnt jacket, backpack, hand and seat from a flight last week. Lithium batteries can be dangerous. That’s why laptops, cell phones, power banks, gaming devices, e-cigarettes and anything else powered by lithium batteries must be with you in the aircraft cabin, not in your… pic.twitter.com/fOJsreNHbo
— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) March 25, 2025
The global concerns have resulted in tight rules about what can and cannot be stowed in checked luggage. Most airlines place limits on the cells permitted of around 100 Wh and do not allow recharging on board. Keeping battery-powered devices “to hand” in the cabin means any overheating can be quickly detected and addressed by trained staff.
After the Air France plane landed back at Paris Orly, maintenance teams were at work trying to locate the device by 2:42 pm according to AirLive. The New York Post reports that the phone was found. The flight took off again just 20 minutes later and finally delivered flyers to their French Caribbean destination eight hours later.
