New Incidents Defy Samsung's Efforts To End Smartphone Woes

Samsung Electronics seemed to have its smartphone troubles under control until authorities had to evacuate a Southwest Airlines flight in Kentucky last week for an incident that involved a replacement phone.

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The reason: Authorities said a Samsung smartphone started smoking and making “popping” noises, just moments after its owner had boarded the plane and turned off the device.

Passenger Brian Green, 43, says the device was a Galaxy Note 7 he had picked up from an authorized AT&T retailer Sept. 21 as a replacement for another Note 7 phone he returned when Samsung announced a global recall a week earlier. The recall came after a series of incidents last month in which Note 7 batteries overheated or caught fire. But Samsung had promised that the replacement models were safe.

Reports of more replacement phones catching fire are trickling in, and the South Korean tech giant faces more scrutiny after earlier criticism for being slow to react and sending confusing signals in the first days of the recall.

“They’re in a really tricky spot,” said Ben Bajarin, a tech industry analyst with the Creative Strategies research firm. “There’s such a stigma around this device now that it’s hard to see how sales can do well going forward.”

Consider Green’s reaction: “I really liked the device. It had a lot of nice features,” he told The Associated Press in an interview Friday. But after the incident on the plane, he bought a new iPhone 7 from Apple, rather than take his chances with yet another Samsung Note. “At this point, I don’t want to mess with it anymore.”

Authorities haven’t confirmed what model of Samsung phone was involved in last week’s incident. A spokeswoman for the Consumer Product Safety Commission said Friday that her agency is still investigating and had no further information.