A Luggage Container Caught Fire Minutes Before Loading Onto a British Airways Flight

A luggage container caught fire on the ramp at Milan Malpensa Airport on August 16, 2026, minutes before ground crews were due to load it into the cargo hold of British Airways flight BA585 to London Heathrow. Airport firefighters extinguished the blaze within minutes, nobody was hurt, and the aircraft eventually departed about two and a half hours late.

What happened at Malpensa

The fire broke out shortly after 1 p.m. local time at a Terminal 1 gate, where handlers from ground services company Aviapartner were staging containers of checked baggage for loading. Thick black smoke and flames poured from the top of one container as it sat on the tarmac.

Ground crews pulled the neighboring containers clear to stop the fire from spreading, and airport fire trucks arrived within moments to douse the flames with water. Flight BA585, identified by flight-tracking outlets as an Airbus A321neo, registration G-NEOT, was originally due to leave Malpensa at 1:45 p.m. but did not take off until 4:07 p.m.

British Airways said a small number of checked bags were damaged and that it had contacted the affected passengers directly. The airline said the incident was quickly dealt with, with no injury to anyone and no impact to other flights, and that an investigation into the cause was underway.

Why the cause still isn’t confirmed

The exact trigger has not been officially established. UK travel outlet paddleyourownkanoo, which first published photos of the fire from a passenger waiting to board, reported that a lithium battery inside a passenger’s suitcase was the leading theory.

Italian outlet Il Giorno later floated a short circuit in the container’s own equipment as an alternate possibility, tied to several days of high temperatures at the airport. Neither cause has been confirmed by British Airways, Aviapartner, or Italian authorities.

Why lithium batteries aren’t allowed loose in checked bags

Whatever caused this fire, the incident is a reminder of why regulators treat lithium batteries as cargo-hold hazards. Loose or spare lithium batteries are barred from checked luggage worldwide precisely because a fire in an unattended bag, buried in a stack of others, can burn for minutes before anyone notices.

A battery fire in the cabin is something crew can see, reach, and douse. One in a ramp container or a cargo hold depends on ground staff spotting the smoke in time, which is exactly what happened at Malpensa and one reason the fire stayed contained to a single container.

Malpensa’s fire never left the ground, unlike an in-flight power bank fire that diverted a SWISS Airbus A330 to Dublin earlier this month. Both land in the same pattern: batteries that ignite without warning, wherever they happen to be packed.