Air France flight returns to Paris because of... a cell phone

The Air France Boeing 777-330 (flight AF750) which took off from Paris-Orly airport for Guadeloupe at 11.50 Paris time on Friday morning has turned back after 2 hours and 20 minutes. The reason for this return to the point of departure? According to the Air Plus News website, echoed by several French news headlines, the pilots decided to make an emergency return to Orly after a passenger lost a cell phone in the cabin. The passenger's smartphone had slipped through a ventilation grille to the point where it was no longer accessible, and therefore irrecoverable. Fearing that the aircraft's lithium battery might be damaged, leading to a fire hazard, the crew decided to return to Paris. An identical mishap occurred on another Air France flight on February 6, this time between Paris and Martinique.

Flight AF750 landed at Orly at 2.07pm. Maintenance teams then set about recovering the lost phone. The plane, with 375 passengers on board, took off again from Paris-Orly at 4:13pm (Paris time). It is scheduled to land in Guadeloupe at around 7:15pm.