Flight LH453 was over Canada when the seat swallowed the gadget whole, prompting the cockpit crew to yank the flight off course to Boston.
A Lufthansa spokesperson said: "To eliminate any potential risk, particularly about possible overheating, the cockpit crew and air traffic control jointly decided, as a precaution, to divert the flight to Boston. A Lufthansa Technik team safely removed and inspected the damaged tablet."
The aircraft, an A380 registered as D-AIMC, had 460 souls onboard (and one person who had sold his soul to Jobs' Mob) and touched down on runway 33L at Boston at 02:41 local time. Lufthansa later confirmed the trapped device showed "visible signs of deformation due to the seat's movements" when the plane hit the tarmac.
After Lufthansa’s engineers fished out the wounded iPad and checked it for signs of imminent explosion, the aircraft got underway again around 90 minutes later, finally reaching Munich three hours late.
The real problem is the Fruity Cargo Cult's endless quest to wedge lithium-ion bombs into ever-thinner shells. Airlines have not forgotten the recent disasters, including an Air Busan Airbus A321 that went up in smoke earlier this year after a similar battery incident.
Despite all this, Apple fans still seem happy to pay top dollar for a flying fire risk. As Lufthansa said: "the safety of our passengers and crew is always our top priority," which now includes rescuing gadgets built to self-immolate at 35,000 feet.