Boeing 737: Passengers evacuate Southwest Airlines plane after phone catches fire and seat goes up in flames filling cabin with smoke

Over 100 passengers were evacuated from a parked Southwest plane after a passenger’s phone caught fire - which caused a seat to also go up in flames. Southwest Airlines Flight 3316 was parked at the gate at Denver International Airport on Friday 15 November and was getting ready to depart when the incident occurred.

The airline had already boarded 108 passengers onto the Boeing 737-700 when a passenger’s cell phone battery caught on fire. This led to one of the plane’s seats also catching alight, the airline said in a statement to The Independent.

Passengers at the rear of the plane evacuated using emergency slides, while those seated toward the front left through the front door via the jet bridge, the FAA and the airline said. Preliminary reports show that one passenger sustained a minor injury during the evacuation and the passenger whose phone caught on fire was being treated for burns, the airline said in their statement.

The incident caused chaos as passengers scrambled to deplane while smoke started to fill the cabin. Crew members were able to extinguish the fire that had ignited on the seat.

An airline spokesperson said: “Southwest’s customer care team is working to accommodate the passengers on another aircraft to their original destination of Houston. Nothing is more important to Southwest than the safety of its customers and employees. The incident remains under investigation.”

The FAA said it will investigate the incident. It wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “Lithium ion-powered devices, like cell phones and power banks, are safest with you inside the aircraft cabin as crew are trained to quickly address events of smoke and fire”.