A Power Bank Smoked Under a Seat on HK Express UO676 to Jeju, and a Passenger Burned Her Thumb Pulling It Out

A power bank overheated and gave off smoke on HK Express flight UO676 from Hong Kong to Jeju on the morning of Sunday, October 25, 2026, and the passenger who owned it burned her hand. The airline said in a statement, quoted by the Aviation Herald, that an external charger overheated and emitted smoke, causing a minor hand injury, and that the crew handled the situation properly.

The aircraft landed normally at Jeju. There were 236 passengers and seven crew on board, according to the Jeju Fire Safety Headquarters.

What happened on UO676

The jet was an Airbus A321neo registered B-KKP, according to the Aviation Herald. The power bank was in a bag stowed under a seat and started to overheat and smoke in flight, fire officials told Korea JoongAng Daily.

The owner, whom the fire authorities described as a Chinese national, burned her left thumb while taking the power bank out of the bag. The Kyunghyang Shinmun gave her age as in her 50s.

Cabin crew put the device in a heat-resistant containment bag carried for battery fires and submerged it in water, the fire authorities said. The flight crew told Jeju about the problem and asked for medical support on arrival, the Aviation Herald reported.

The fire headquarters received the report at about 6:22 a.m. local time, roughly 10 minutes before landing, according to the Kyunghyang Shinmun. Firefighters reached the airport at about 6:32 a.m. and waited for the aircraft, Korea JoongAng Daily reported.

The A321neo landed on runway 07 at Jeju International Airport, the Aviation Herald said. Firefighters boarded, confirmed there was no further fire risk and gave the woman first aid; she declined an ambulance and said she would go to a hospital on her own.

HK Express, a subsidiary of Cathay Pacific, apologized for the incident, VnExpress International reported. The airline also said the aircraft left on its next sector on time, according to the Aviation Herald.

The published accounts do not name the make or capacity of the power bank, or say whether it was switched on or connected to anything when it began to smoke.

Hong Kong already restricts power banks on board

Since April 7, 2025, Hong Kong’s Civil Aviation Department (CAD) has required local airlines to stop passengers from using power banks to charge other devices or recharge power banks during flight. The same rule banned stowing power banks in overhead compartments. The CAD cited recent safety incidents suspected to have been caused by passengers carrying and using power banks.

On March 28, 2026, the CAD added a limit of two lithium battery power banks per passenger for every flight departing Hong Kong International Airport, with immediate effect. It said the change follows the latest International Civil Aviation Organization requirements.

By the fire authorities’ account, the UO676 power bank was stowed the way the rules allow: in a bag under the seat, not in an overhead bin. A smoking bag at a passenger’s feet is noticed and reached within moments, which a battery inside a closed overhead bin is not.

The rules do not take the battery itself out of the cabin, and a lithium cell can fail whether or not anyone is using it. AeroCorner’s explainer on lithium batteries on planes covers how those failures start.

The Hong Kong rules followed power bank fires on two flights linked to the city. On March 20, 2025, four days before the CAD announced its restrictions, a Hong Kong Airlines A320 flying from Hangzhou to Hong Kong diverted to Fuzhou after a power bank caught fire in an overhead bin, according to a notification from China’s civil aviation regulator published by France’s BEA.

About seven weeks earlier, on January 28, 2025, an Air Busan A321 bound for Hong Kong burned on the ground at Busan, and South Korea’s transport ministry later named a power bank as a possible cause in interim findings, The Standard reported.

Why pulling out a smoking battery is risky

The passenger’s injury came from the most natural reaction: grabbing a smoking device to get it out of a bag. The FAA’s guidance for airline crews on in-flight fires warns twice that picking up and moving a smoking or burning device may cause injuries.

That guidance tells crews to cool an overheating device with water or another nonalcoholic liquid and leave it untouched for at least 10 to 15 minutes. Only then should it go into a container that keeps it submerged, ideally handled with protective gloves, and be watched for the rest of the flight.

FAA researchers stress why: a fire in one cell of a battery may not yet have spread to the others, but while the device is hot, it still can. The UO676 crew’s containment bag and water match that playbook.

A Jeju Air power bank fire two weeks earlier

UO676 came about two weeks after a power bank caught fire on a Jeju Air flight from Cheongju to Jeju before it reached the runway on October 10, according to the Seoul Economic Daily. All 168 people on board were evacuated as smoke spread through the cabin.

European carriers have had the same problem in the past six weeks. On September 26, Lufthansa LH1170 diverted to Lyon after a power bank fire, nine days after KLM’s KL735 turned back to Amsterdam for the same reason.