Last year, a passenger of a commercial plane flying over Australia noticed that his iPhone started to emit funk, the device catching fire at a given moment. Fortunately, no one on the plane was injured, but the iPhone was destroyed and the blame fell on the terminal's battery. Well, the battery was really to blame, but it didn't break by itself, but was "helped" by a screw that pierced it. That screw would have remained in the iPhone after a screen replacement, which was done at a service that had not been authorized by Apple to do such procedures.
The phone was sent to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) as part of an investigation into the matter, which has now revealed that a misplaced screw punctured the battery casing, leading to a short circuit that caused the battery to overheat.
The screw that caused the issue was the result of a botched screen-replacement job from a non-authorized service center. A screw from the bottom of the unit, adjacent to the 30-pin connector, found its way into the handset, and caused the battery compartment to puncture as a result.
In the image above you have shown the screw inside the device, and the authorities in Australia recently closed the case regarding the iPhone problem, concluding that that screw was to blame. Of course, such problems can occur at any service, not only at unauthorized ones, but the good part is that the battery did not catch fire by itself and that the intervention of a foreign object was needed to damage it.
