Bag of Vapes Explodes Inside Cabin; Passengers Evacuated Onto Runway

An EasyJet flight had to be evacuated due to an exploding vape pen. This pen actually caused a great deal of fear and inconvenience for over 200 passengers looking to fly across Europe on Tuesday.

"Red Flash and Flame"

EasyJet flight EZY8261 was slated to fly from Heraklion, Greece, to London, England, at 1:55 p.m. on Tuesday, September 17, though the belongings inside of one passenger's carry-on bag had other plans for the trip.

Shortly after takeoff, a female passenger noticed her bag was smoking and was “waving it around.” Once she recognised the bag catching fire, she dropped it in the middle of the aisle. Passengers immediately began to take notice of the bag, panicking and screaming "Bomb".

Authorities confirmed the smoking bag belonged to a female passenger, containing both vape pens and an external phone battery, which are what's believed to have caused the explosion.

Those aboard the plane told DailyMail that "a huge red flash and flame" accompanied a "thick, black smoke" that filled the cabin's air. 

Passenger Malachi Griffith recalled the series of events to Storyful:

“I could smell and see smoke coming towards us from the front of the plane so I asked my dad, 'Is this protocol?'. Then a girl ran down the aisle with a bag…with smoke out of it and then there was a cracking noise, which was the sound of the flames which caused panic.”

The plane returned to Greece and landed on a runway, where rescue teams were prepared to accommodate those on board. A total of 236 people were aboard the Airbus A321, including two children. All passengers exited the plane via emergency slides. No injuries from the fire were reported, albeit one passenger was said to have suffered friction burns while going down a slide.

The bag made a large black stain in the middle of the aisle's floor. Following the evacuation, passengers were permitted to retrieve belongings from the plane.

EasyJet made a statement to Storyful following the flight's abrupt end:

“Fire services attended the aircraft and cabin crew evacuated the aircraft in line with procedures. Customers were looked after in the terminal while a replacement aircraft and crew were arranged to fly customers home later the same day. Safety is our highest priority,”
 

The flight was canceled, and another plane was said to return the passengers back to Heraklion, though conflicting reports claim that the flight was actually postponed and a replacement aircraft got passengers on late evening flight to London, which started around 11:00 p.m.