JetBlue Flight Makes Emergency Landing After Laptop Battery Catches Fire

A JetBlue flight from New York to San Francisco was forced to make an emergency landing Tuesday after a laptop battery caught fire aboard the plane. The carrier was diverted to Michigan after passengers reported smoke coming from a carry-on bag holding a laptop.

JetBlue Flight 915 departed John F. Kennedy International Airport for San Francisco International but was diverted to Grand Rapids, Michigan, according to reports. JetBlue confirmed the incident in a statement late Tuesday and said that it made the decision to land after reports of “smoke emitting from a carry-on bag holding a laptop computer,” the airline said.

The Federal Aviation Administration later confirmed to multiple news outlets that the flight was rerouted “due to a lithium battery fire from a passenger’s laptop.” According to CBS San Francisco, flight crew successfully put out the fire before the plane landed. It is not clear what kind of laptop caused the incident.

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“I was stunned,” said passenger Kat Honniball in an interview with local ABC affiliate WZZM. “I knew something was going to happen because you know, lithium batteries catching on fire when you're up at 38,000 feet — you can't help but think you gotta do something. So I was prepared for it.”

“I didn’t know if it was a device on fire or the plane on fire because they didn’t tell us anything,” passenger Alan Honniball said, according to CBS. “We didn’t know what was going on.”

Honniball reported that everyone aboard remained “calm” throughout the ordeal.

The Twitter account for Gerald R. Ford International Airport, where the plane was diverted, tweeted that the plane landed safely around 8 p.m. local time. None of the 158 people on board were injured during the event, the airport reported.

JetBlue did not immediately return International Business Times’ request for comment.