Narrative:

Approximately 3.5 hours before landing in hnl; I was walking through the first class aisle when I smelled the odor of something electrical burning. I immediately ran into the first class galley to see if the #3 flight attendant was smelling the same odor I was and was going to ask her to assist me in finding the source. The #3 advised me that she had already found the source of the odor. She stated that the passenger seated had a power inverter plugged into the power outlet and was powering the passenger's son's personal dvd player and that the inverter got really hot and started to smoke. Passenger immediately unplugged inverter and smoke stopped. She further advised that she instructed passenger to not use inverter. I immediately went to passenger and reiterated that inverter posed a possible danger and she was not to plug the inverter back in. I further advised that if I saw it plugged in; I would have to confiscate it. Later; another passenger seated nearby stated to me that he thought that the smell was coming from his inverter that he was using to charge his computer with and he unplugged his unit from the power port. Flight continued without further incident. Inverter that passenger used was rated at 15 watts which is too small. Dvd players usually operate at around 35 watts and laptop computers anywhere between 50-75 watts. This means that inverter used could not handle the load and therefore it overheated and could have resulted in a fire.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A passenger's small inverter connected to a seat power port and powering a personal DVD player overheated causing an electrical burning smell in the First Class cabin. The smell dissipated when the inverter was disconnected.

Narrative: Approximately 3.5 hours before landing in HNL; I was walking through the first class aisle when I smelled the odor of something electrical burning. I immediately ran into the first class galley to see if the #3 Flight Attendant was smelling the same odor I was and was going to ask her to assist me in finding the source. The #3 advised me that she had already found the source of the odor. She stated that the passenger seated had a power inverter plugged into the power outlet and was powering the passenger's son's personal DVD player and that the inverter got really hot and started to smoke. Passenger immediately unplugged inverter and smoke stopped. She further advised that she instructed passenger to not use inverter. I immediately went to passenger and reiterated that inverter posed a possible danger and she was not to plug the inverter back in. I further advised that if I saw it plugged in; I would have to confiscate it. Later; another passenger seated nearby stated to me that he thought that the smell was coming from his inverter that he was using to charge his computer with and he unplugged his unit from the power port. Flight continued without further incident. Inverter that passenger used was rated at 15 Watts which is too small. DVD players usually operate at around 35 watts and laptop computers anywhere between 50-75 watts. This means that inverter used could not handle the load and therefore it overheated and could have resulted in a fire.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.