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Dramatic airport footage shows passengers sliding down emergency chutes and running for their lives across the tarmac in Spain after a New Zealand passenger’s mobile phone battery apparently exploded and burned while being charged.

The airline involved was Ryanair and the airport was Barcelona’s El Prat, second largest and second busiest airport in Spain behind Madrid-Barajas Airport.

A Ryanair statement said: “The passengers of a flight from Barcelona to Ibiza were evacuated in an emergency at Barcelona’s El Prat Airport because of a fire in a mobile phone that was being charged with an external battery.

“All the passengers were evacuated from the aircraft in a safe way to the terminal and the cabin crew took charge of the device.

“Ryanair is working to organise a replacement plane to re-accommodate the passengers as fast as possible.”

Instagram footage, apparently filmed inside the plane and showing a blazing device, surfaced yesterday.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl5oF3tnGJ6/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Britain’s Daily Express quoted a passenger who said the plane was about 30 metres from the docking bay “when the device exploded and smoke began to come out”.

Video footage filmed from the tarmac shows people exiting the aircraft via emergency slides, being helped at the bottom and then moving quickly off the tarmac.

Several news outlets, including Stuff.co.nz in New Zealand, said they understood the owner of the exploding phone battery to be a New Zealander.

Written by Peter Needham