Every airline mentioned this. American, Japan Airlines, Dragonair, Cathay Pacific, Etihad, JetBlue and Southwest.
"Green said that he had powered down the phone as requested by the flight crew and put it in his pocket when it began smoking."
What's the remedy here? All Galaxy Notes in the airtight metal box until we land?
All phones with a battery are a fire hazard if they get the wrong OS.
One of the airlines last week shorted the warning to "Samsung 7 phone".
Bad PR for Samsung.
My RC aircraft group has a 55 gallon drum with salt water at our flying field. RC aircraft pretty much exclusively use lithium polymer packs, sometimes 2 the size of bricks in larger models / big helis. If a lipo starts smoking, you chuck it in the salt water and it shorts it out + cools it down. The reaction when they short internally (such as when they malfunction or get damaged e.g. When a heli crashes and smashes the pack -- they're not super rigid) is more thermite than dynamite, but it can still burn through things like flying tin can aircraft.
Here's what happens when you overcharge a few on purpose and beat them with a stick: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=coX0SwubG4A
Typically there's quite a bit of warning in the form of smoke first. Not sure if the chemistry in the Samsung batteries but they're likely lithium polymer. There are tons of different chemistries though: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/types_of_lithium_...
https://www.productsafety.gov.au/recall/samsung-samsung-top-...