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Caan bans use of Note 7 on aircraft
The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (Caan) has banned the use of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 mobile phone on all domestic and international flights following reports that the model has caught fire due to overheating of the battery.The Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (Caan) has banned the use of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 mobile phone on all domestic and international flights following reports that the model has caught fire due to overheating of the battery.
All users of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 must switch it off and place it inside their carry-on baggage before boarding the aircraft, the regulatory body said Friday in a public notice.
“Information that the phone’s battery has caught fire has come to our attention. This could pose a threat to aviation safety. We, therefore, request all domestic and international passengers to cooperate with us,” says the notice.
Caan moved to ban use of the phone two days after a replacement model of the Galaxy Note 7, deemed safe by Samsung, caught fire on a plane in the US. However, the Galaxy Note 7, the latest version of Samsung’s smartphone, has not been officially launched in Nepal.
Samsung, the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer, launched the Galaxy Note 7 on August 19. It comes with an extra-large screen, high-resolution camera and an iris scanner which is used to unlock the phone.
The first report of a fire was reported by Ariel Gonzalez who posted a video on YouTube on August 29 of a Galaxy Note 7 with “burnt rubber casing and damaged screen”. The handset caught fire shortly after it was unplugged from the official Samsung charger, BBC quoted Gonzalez as saying.
Further images of a burnt Galaxy Note 7 were uploaded to Kakao Story, a popular social media site in Korea, on August 30, BBC said.
After these incidents were reported, Samsung recalled at least 2.5 million units of the Galaxy Note 7 from 10 countries in September. At the time when the recall was announced, Samsung said it was aware of only 35 such cases worldwide.
However, a Galaxy Note 7 device reportedly caught fire on a Southwest Airlines plane in the US. “Indiana passenger Brian Green’s phone began emitting smoke inside a Southwest Airlines flight to Baltimore from Louisville, Kentucky,” Reuters quoted Green’s wife Sarah as saying. She said that Green had “replaced the original phone about two weeks ago after getting a text message from Samsung”.