“Findings showed that the Galaxy Note 7 batteries and phone units have caught fire during charging prompting the manufacturer to recall all units sold worldwide”, PAL said in a statement. In a separate statement on Saturday, Samsung asked consumers in South Korea to discontinue the use of their Galaxy Note 7 phones and visit one of the company’s service centers for the recall process.
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Sales of the Note 7 were halted last week in 10 countries: the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, the UAE and Korea.
Within just two weeks after the phone was launched, Samsung had to announce an unprecedented recall of 2.5 million Galaxy Note 7 worldwide. The South Korean company said that rechargeable lithium batteries manufactured by one of its suppliers were faulty. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission urged owners of the phone to turn them off and leave them off.
In the USA, replacement devices will be issued to exchange program participants upon completion of the CPSC process.
“As a follow-up of the battery issue, we made a decision to temporarily stop using Samsung SDI’s battery for Galaxy Note 7”, the Korean Herald reported, citing sources from Samsung Electronics. The FAA already warned airline passengers late Thursday not to turn on or charge the Galaxy Note 7 during flights and not to put the smartphone in their checked bags.
The internet has been filled with videos of the premium model spontaneously bursting into flame, mostly while the battery is charging, but also during ordinary use.
Danyal Gilani, PIA’s official spokesperson and General Manager public affairs, tweeted the advice to all passengers to refrain from carrying Galaxy Note 7 even in their check-in luggage.
The company has confirmed 35 cases of its devices catching fire, a lot of them occurring while the battery was being charged.
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The Note 7, released in August, was extremely well reviewed.
