Narrative:

Xx and I were on break on flight. I had just come out of the bunk with about 20 minutes or so before we were called back to the flight deck for landing. Xx was still in the bunk. I just sat down in seat 1A when shortly I started to smell an electrical burning smell. As I got up; the passenger from seat 3A in the aisle was coming by my seat mentioned he smelled the odor too from the vicinity of his seat. As I went back two rows a couple of fas (flight attendants) just came to seat 3A and were looking at the vicinity of his seat. When I got closer to the seat I smelled a somewhat stronger smell. The fas also stated they initially saw some thin wispy smoke when they first showed up (which I did not see). At that point; I called up front and had the fos (first officers) turn off the ife (inflight entertainment) switch to kill the power to the entertainment system and power to the seats to potentially help stabilize the situation. The fos up front turned the switch off and also said they had a brief smell of an electrical burning odor up on the flight deck. They said before I called; they unplugged a charger from the electrical outlet (charger was not hot) and also turned off the broadband switch as a precaution. As luck would have it; the smell started to dissipate shortly after getting the ife switch off. About then the passenger from seat 3A mentioned he was not sure where his iPhone7 was. We all started to look around the seat for the phone and also looked for any indication of fire; hot spots; burning; or electrical arcing. None of us saw any evidence of any problems and the smell at that point was definitely dissipating. At that point I told the fas to monitor the situation and advise if anything got worse and we were going to continue to [destination] with the ife switch off. I also told the fos up front to keep abreast of potential alternate airports on the last part of our route into [destination]. When I finally got back up front; I made a call to dispatch with a patch to [maintenance control] to discuss the situation. I ask dispatch about our gate and he came back and confirmed. A short time later dispatch advised that [our gate] is going to have a 30 minute hold. I informed dispatch that a wait of 30 minutes was not going to work as other passengers on the aircraft are already concerned with what was going on in the cabin and we need to park at the gate without any delay. He responded and got us [another gate] with no wait. We continued on with no delay; no other problems; and the smell almost gone. When we got to the gate; maintenance folks came on board and after a period of time; found the passenger's iphone 7 with a crushed screen under his seat. One interesting note was that the pilots up front had a brief electrical burning smell. This is interesting as the flight deck gets only fresh air (no recycled cabin air) from the left pack. Also; the flight deck is slightly pressurized higher than the cabin to keep the air flow going aft so no cabin air drifts up front.pilots and the entire cabin crew did an outstanding job dealing with this potentially life threatening situation. We were extremely lucky that this incident did not turn into something more serious. Obviously the root cause of the problem was the passenger's iphone's crushed screen and not the seat power or entertainment system. It was a coincidence that the smell started to dissipate shortly after we turned the ife switch off.

Related reports:

Google
 

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Boeing 777 flight crew reported detecting faint electrical fumes in the business class section; later attributed to an iPhone which had been crushed under a seat.

Narrative: XX and I were on break on flight. I had just come out of the bunk with about 20 minutes or so before we were called back to the flight deck for landing. XX was still in the bunk. I just sat down in seat 1A when shortly I started to smell an electrical burning smell. As I got up; the passenger from seat 3A in the aisle was coming by my seat mentioned he smelled the odor too from the vicinity of his seat. As I went back two rows a couple of FAs (flight attendants) just came to seat 3A and were looking at the vicinity of his seat. When I got closer to the seat I smelled a somewhat stronger smell. The FAs also stated they initially saw some thin wispy smoke when they first showed up (which I did not see). At that point; I called up front and had the FOs (first officers) turn off the IFE (Inflight Entertainment) switch to kill the power to the entertainment system and power to the seats to potentially help stabilize the situation. The FOs up front turned the switch off and also said they had a brief smell of an electrical burning odor up on the flight deck. They said before I called; they unplugged a charger from the electrical outlet (charger was not hot) and also turned off the broadband switch as a precaution. As luck would have it; the smell started to dissipate shortly after getting the IFE switch off. About then the Passenger from seat 3A mentioned he was not sure where his iPhone7 was. We all started to look around the seat for the phone and also looked for any indication of fire; hot spots; burning; or electrical arcing. None of us saw any evidence of any problems and the smell at that point was definitely dissipating. At that point I told the FAs to monitor the situation and advise if anything got worse and we were going to continue to [destination] with the IFE switch off. I also told the FOs up front to keep abreast of potential alternate airports on the last part of our route into [destination]. When I finally got back up front; I made a call to Dispatch with a patch to [maintenance control] to discuss the situation. I ask Dispatch about our gate and he came back and confirmed. A short time later Dispatch advised that [our gate] is going to have a 30 minute hold. I informed Dispatch that a wait of 30 minutes was not going to work as other passengers on the aircraft are already concerned with what was going on in the cabin and we need to park at the gate without any delay. He responded and got us [another gate] with no wait. We continued on with no delay; no other problems; and the smell almost gone. When we got to the gate; maintenance folks came on board and after a period of time; found the Passenger's iPhone 7 with a crushed screen under his seat. One interesting note was that the pilots up front had a brief electrical burning smell. This is interesting as the flight deck gets only fresh air (no recycled cabin air) from the left pack. Also; the flight deck is slightly pressurized higher than the cabin to keep the air flow going aft so no cabin air drifts up front.Pilots and the entire cabin crew did an outstanding job dealing with this potentially life threatening situation. We were extremely lucky that this incident did not turn into something more serious. Obviously the root cause of the problem was the Passenger's iPhone's crushed screen and not the seat power or entertainment system. It was a coincidence that the smell started to dissipate shortly after we turned the IFE switch off.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.