What Happened Mid-Flight
A routine domestic service turned into an emergency on 11 October when a passenger's power bank caught fire inside an overhead bin aboard IndiGo flight 6E 6115. The Airbus A321 had departed Delhi at 1.30pm bound for Chennai, carrying more than 180 passengers, when smoke began streaming from the luggage compartment.
Video clips circulated online show flames visible inside the bin as passengers attempted to smother the fire with bags and cloth. Cabin crew moved quickly with extinguishers, and one passenger can be heard urging others to stay calm. The crew contained the blaze, but the pilots chose to divert the aircraft as a precaution. The plane touched down at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad at 3.59pm, one minute ahead of its original scheduled arrival time in Chennai.
No injuries were reported. IndiGo arranged an alternate aircraft to complete the journey and provided refreshments whilst passengers waited.
Why Power Banks Keep Igniting
The incident underscores a persistent risk in commercial aviation: lithium-ion batteries. These cells power the vast majority of portable electronics, from smartphones to laptops to the power banks passengers routinely carry. When damaged, overcharged, or subjected to pressure changes, they can enter thermal runaway, a chain reaction that releases heat and flammable gases.
Aviation regulators worldwide prohibit power banks in checked luggage for this reason; they must travel in the cabin, where crew can respond immediately. India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation issued an advisory last year that went further, asking airlines to ban the use of power banks to charge devices during flight. The rule aims to reduce the chance of overheating whilst a device is unattended.
Yet enforcement remains patchy, and the sheer volume of lithium-powered gadgets aboard every flight means the baseline risk is never zero. Passengers often stow power banks in seat-back pockets or overhead bins without switching them off or ensuring they are protected from accidental activation.
A Pattern, Not an Anomaly
This was not IndiGo's first encounter with a burning power bank. On 5 May, another IndiGo service, flight 6E 108 from Hyderabad to Chandigarh, saw a power bank ignite after the aircraft had landed. Smoke and flames spread through the cabin, forcing an emergency evacuation. Six people were injured and taken to hospital.
Seven months before that, on 19 October last year, a power bank caught fire aboard flight 6E 2107 from Delhi to Dimapur as the plane taxied for departure. The aircraft returned to the gate, and IndiGo attributed the fire to a passenger's device stored in a seat-back pocket.
Three incidents in 18 months involving the same airline and the same type of device point to a systemic challenge rather than isolated bad luck. IndiGo operates one of the world's largest fleets and carries hundreds of millions of passengers annually, which raises the absolute number of incidents. But the frequency also reflects how ubiquitous lithium batteries have become in travel, and how little margin for error exists when one fails at altitude.
What Travellers Should Know
Passengers are responsible for the condition of the batteries they bring aboard. A power bank with visible damage, swelling, or excessive heat should not be packed. Devices should be switched off when not in use, and ideally stored in a way that prevents buttons or ports from being pressed accidentally.
Airlines and airports conduct spot checks, but the onus remains on individuals. The consequences of a mid-flight fire extend beyond the passenger who owns the device; an emergency diversion disrupts schedules, burns fuel, and ties up airport resources.
Regulators have so far stopped short of banning power banks outright, recognising that they are now integral to how people travel. The trade-off is vigilance: travellers must treat these devices as the potential fire hazards they are, not as inert accessories. The alternative is more diversions, more evacuations, and eventually, more injuries.
