Posted on 10/30/2025 7:04:28 PM PDT by Red Badger
Well, I didn't know that this was a thing.
A United Airlines flight had to make a U-turn on a transatlantic flight because someone dropped their laptop.
You'd think simply dropping your computer wouldn't create an air travel incident.
But the fact that this passenger just so happened to drop the computer through a crack and into the cargo hold could have resulted in a midair disaster.
Here's Business Insider:
An audio recording published by LiveATC.net and uploaded to YouTube appears to show the reason for the diversion.
'We have a minor situation here with a passenger who has somehow dropped a laptop down the sidewall into the cargo pit of the airplane,' one of the pilots tells air traffic control.
'We don't know the status of it, we can't access it, we can't see it,' he added. 'So our decision is to return to Dulles and find this laptop before we can continue over the ocean.'
Imagine you're on a flight from Washington to Rome and you have a false start like this over Cape Cod.
As laptops contain lithium batteries, they pose a potential fire risk.
If overcharged or damaged, it can result in thermal runaway, leading to rapid temperature increase.
And because the laptop was inaccessible, the crew might not know if it had been damaged or caught fire until it was too late.
That's the same reason airlines require electronics to be carried in your carry-on rather than your checked luggage.
The ground crew located the laptop, everything was fine, and the flight was quickly back in the air and on the way to Rome.
Only to arrive four hours late.
Just another reason for you to be paranoid about ruining everyone's day the next time you take a plane.
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United DC-10-30s had a lower deck galley..
Excellent question
Considering cargo holds on airlines are pressurized at about 80% of cabin pressure that kind of crack (actually I’m guessing a gap) would be a fairly large leak for the cabin pressure.
Were they past the midpoint? I’ve never understood why they consider flying to their origin safer than the destination. Maybe they want to crash on home turf.
The passenger deck is sort of like a perforated Lego plate. Accessories, like seats and partitions, are strapped down to that plate and the carpet sections are laid down to make it pretty. I suppose one of those dress sections had been shifted.
Very expensive to operate.
Didn't know where to look.
They had made it to the Massachusetts coast I think........
Oh stewardess. I speak jive
After piloting most of the Boeing airliners and two of Douglas’ airliners, I smell something fishy and don’t believe this story.
There are ways to access the lower deck from the upper deck but there is no, “crack,” space that a passenger can drop anything through into the cargo areas.
“The last L1011 commercial flight was in 2008. It was a great plane though.”
I flew on one from LAX to Boston, wonderful airplane. From what I understand, flight crews and passengers really loved them. Lockheed didn’t make many of them and they lost money building them. They somehow couldn’t cash in on the jumbo jet market.
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