20 Southwest Airlines Employees Have Been Injured From Exploding Soda Cans Due to Extreme Heat

Around 20 Southwest Airlines employees have been injured from exploding soda cans due to extreme heat exposure this summer, according to the airline.

Record-high temperatures sweeping the United States have wreaked havoc inside airplanes.

"The planes are getting hot because they have to turn the engines off. They can't let the engines run while they're just sitting in the tarmac," former flight attendant Elaine Swan tells Inside Edition.

Most of the incidents involving soda cans took place on flights out of cities with hot climates, like Phoenix and Las Vegas , while flight attendants were opening them.

One victim needed stitches.

Flight attendants are now being warned not to open cans that look misshapen.

"Southwest is a little bit different from some of the other airlines because they do not serve food, so the soda cans are just there. Now there's ice around it but it's not refrigerated so the heat can sometimes impact those cans and that's where we're seeing these explosions take place," Swan tells Inside Edition.

Soda cans exposed to high heat can burst without warning.

"To save money they've been cutting back on the thickness of the cans and with the expansions of the heat, the carbon dioxide reaches a certain point, boom," explosive experts Phil Gauvin tells Inside Edition.

In a demonstration conducted by Gauvin, it took one minute for soda cans against a blow torch to explode.

So what can you do if you find yourself sitting on an unbearable hot plane?

"The flight attendants are gonna ask you to do two things during this heat. They're gonna ask you to close those shades and in addition to that, turn the vent on, so make sure that you're following those directions to help you stay cool," Swan says.

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