It’s been a few weeks since Samsung issued an unprecedented second recall of the Galaxy Note 7 but the global clean-up is still ongoing. After the South Korean tech giant decided to cut its losses following reports of replacement units catching fire and exploding, similar to their predecessors prior to the first recall, the company was forced to permanently discontinue the production of its latest flagship and is still in the process of issuing refunds and alternative units. As the situation unfolded, several governments have decided to take some preventive measures of their own. Not surprisingly, the primary concern in most countries is related to flights. While modern airplanes are statistically a safer method of transportation than cars, a burning smartphone can still cause a lot of problems. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is currently investigating one such report of a plane evacuation prompted by a smoking Galaxy Note 7.
That’s precisely why the US Department of Transportation recently banned Samsung’s phablet over safety concerns, and the Canadian government mirrored that move shortly afterwards. Similar restrictions were soon placed in most other parts of the world, and now they’re going into effect in China as well. As announced by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) earlier today, Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones will be banned from all flights in the country as of tomorrow, October 27.
Curiously enough, China was one of the few countries that weren’t affected by the original Galaxy Note 7 recall. Back in early September, Samsung suspected that its battery-making division Samsung SDI has been responsible for the fact that its latest flagship seemed to have fire-related issues. However, that theory turned out to be false after replacement units were also reported to be similarly susceptible to catching fire. Unfortunately, Samsung still has not confirmed what went wrong with the Galaxy Note 7. The South Korean smartphone maker has yet to conclude its in-depth investigation of the matter and the latest reports suggest that the company may have even suspended development of the upcoming Galaxy S8 while they continue to figure out what caused this fiasco in the first place.