United Airlines Flight Makes Emergency U-Turn After Passenger’s Laptop Falls Into Cargo Hold

I'm still trying to figure out how the laptop can go from the pax deck to the cargo deck.

I always assumed that the cargo area was completely isolated from the cabin so that smoke/fire/fumes in cargo would be kept from entering the cabin as long as possible.

As I recall, there was a DC-10 loss where the cargo door was not latched properly. When the door opened at altitude, the aft cargo hold depressurized. This was Turkish Air 981. The deck between the hold and pax cabin was not designed to be strong enough to withstand the pressure differential, and the pax deck collapsed into the cargo hold. That took with it all of the empannage flight control cables, which were routed under the pax deck. The plane crashed with all onboard lost. McDonald-Douglass' design solution was to incorporate pressure equalizing vents from the pax cabin to the cargo holds to prevent a similar accident. This may be the design intent on the 787 as well. Can anyone say for sure?

At the time the flight turned around, the closest major airport was Boston. Then, they overflew Newark to go back to Dulles. As a major UA hub, EWR maintenance staff could retrieve the laptop and shorten the delay incurred by the passengers. If the laptop were considered a hazard, I would expect the Captain to want to get the plane on the ground sooner rather than later.

Whoa - a lot of questions on this one. I agree with the others posting here. How did this happen. Seams like a laptop falling into the cargo deck is least of their problems.

The number of Lithium Ion batteries in personal devices are expected to triple in the next 2 years and with many of these in relatively cheap items like e-cigarettes and kids toys it’s safe to bet they will be made cheaper and with less safeties in place to prevent thermal runaway. That laptop, like smart phones and other more expensive items have circuits in them to greatly reduce thermal runaway so although they still present a danger they are not the big danger, it’s cheap electronics that led to an annual 2,600 lithium battery-related fire incidents were reported in the United States alone last year. And fire departments struggle with how to put out a fire that actually burns hotter when water is added and gives off toxic chemicals that can be absorbed through your skin.
In the north it’s a constant challenge as people continue to pack items into checked baggage that they are not even aware have lithium ion batteries in them. So far we’ve been lucky, a few close calls but no tragedies, but how long will this last? The Transport Safety Board reported a 30% increase in lithium battery fire incidents aboard aircraft from 2017 to 2021. Sooner or later one of these batteries is going to take down a plane.

If the FAA, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) will not implement laws, that commercial airlines are banned from now on, to allow laptops or any other devices on board (or as freight) that contain Lithium (Lithium-ion) batteries, or having the ability to being charged on board. How many more incidents, or major crashes (South African Airways Flight 295),suspected to be caused by such batteries, are required until preventive actions are taken?

What that is crazy

Tim, you mention "in the north" on two occasions. What's this about? The north of what? And what about the east?

Seems dumb to have turned around, wasting tons of money and everyones time. Laptop had to go thru security. Shoulda just had someone retrieve it after arrival.