Here at Only Kent we like to keep you informed with all the latest iPhone news but this latest news could be rather disconcerting to many of you. It seems as though an Apple iPhone mysteriously spontaneously combusted on an Australian plane flight, although the fire and smoke was successfully extinguished.

The flight concerned was Regional Express Flight ZL319 arriving at Sydney from Lismore. Just after landing it’s reported that an iPhone belonging to a passenger on board the plane started to belch out smoke as well as giving off a red glow. The airline reported that nobody was injured in the incident and that a flight attendant managed to extinguish the device.

Zach Epstein over on BGR reports that the handset in question was the iPhone 4 and not the latest iPhone 4S and that the phone is now in the hands of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is investigating the incident. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) will also be probing the incident. Part of the press release issued by Regional Express said, “A passenger’s mobile phone started emitting a significant amount of dense smoke accompanied by a red glow. In accordance with company standard safety procedures, the Flight Attendant carried out recovery actions immediately and the red glow was extinguished successfully.”

A look at an image of the camera that combusted shows significant damage with scorching and also the iPhone glass casing appearing shattered. The Wall Street Journal reports that there have been isolated incidents of overheating in Apple products before and that they have mainly been linked to battery glitches. It is not known whether the battery being used in the iPhone involved was an Apple approved power unit. A spokeswoman for Apple in Australia said, “We look forward to working with the official investigating this incident.”

We can well imagine that millions of iPhone users around the world could be worried about this occurrence but remember that millions of these smartphones are in existence and this appears to be an isolated incident, unless you know any different? We’re really interested to hear your thoughts on this hopefully one-off incident so let us have your comments on the combusting iPhone.

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