Woman was reportedly burned by Beats headphones, Apple blames ‘third-party’ AAA batteries

The woman whose headphones caught fire during a February flight from Beijing, China to Melbourne, Australia was wearing a pair of AAA-powered Beats, according to the Australian Associated Press. What’s more, the report states that a representative for Apple, which bought Beats in 2014, told the woman’s lawyer that the company’s investigation into the incident blames the use of a “third-party battery” for the cause of the explosion, though it’s unclear what that means. Apple has not responded to a request for comment.

The woman, whose name has not been released, was asleep during the flight when “a loud explosion” was heard by other passengers, according to a March report from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. “As I went to turn around I felt burning on my face,” she told the ATSB. She then threw the headphones on the floor, and flight attendants flushed them with water.

Apple doesn’t currently make headphones powered by AAA batteries, so if the headphones in question were indeed made by Beats, they were likely an older pair.