LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — A British Airways plane landed safely at Harry Reid International Airport on Monday after a fire on board, an airport spokesperson confirmed to Channel 13.
According to a local emergency alert, Clark County Fire Department engines were dispatched to the airport to respond to an aircraft emergency on Monday afternoon.
The Las Vegas airport spokesperson told Channel 13 British Airways had called in the alert "due to a fire caused by a cellphone."
"The fire was extinguished and the aircraft landed safely and taxied to the gate," the spokesperson stated in an email.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, British Airways Flight 271 took off from London, England and reached Las Vegas around 2:30 p.m. The FAA will investigate the incident, a spokesperson added.
"The safety of our customers and crew is the highest priority, the flight landed safely and customers disembarked normally," a British Airways spokesperson stated.
While incidents of lithium battery fires on planes are fairly rare, they are becoming increasingly common, a spokesperson for the safety organization UL Standards and Engagement told CNN in an August 2025 report.
Aviation incidents related to lithium-ion battery fires increased 28% between 2019 and 2023, according to UL Standards and Engagement's data. Vaping devices were identified as the most common cause of lithium battery fires on passenger flights (35%), followed by power banks.
Fires occur when lithium batteries go into "thermal runaway," an unpredictable event where the batteries begin to short circuit, getting hotter and hotter until the battery fails, emitting flames, smoke, and toxic gas, an FAA official told CNN.
The FAA recommends using a halon fire extinguisher — which are standard equipment on planes — to put out lithium battery fires. (The halon extinguishers use compressed gas to disrupt the chemical chain reaction of a fire, while a traditional fire extinguisher uses powder, foam or water to smother it.)
