A plane was forced to return home two hours into its journey after a passenger lost their phone mid-flight.

Air France flight AF750 was last Friday set to travel from Paris to Pointe-a-Pitre in Guadeloupe – a French archipelago in the Caribbean Sea – in what should have taken 9 hours.

But the aircraft’s pilot was forced to turn its 375 passengers and 12 crew members back to France around a quarter of the way into the 4,200-mile trip.

According to AirPlusNews, the Air France flight was ordered back to Paris as a safety precaution after a passenger said they lost their mobile phone.

After returning to Paris Orly at 3.25pm that day, flight AF750 took off for Guadeloupe 20 minutes later.

AirPlusNews reported that the incident came a month after the same plane was made to turn back after a holidaymaker dropped their phone into an air vent ‘and ended up in an inaccessible area’.

Airlines impose strict rules on the usage of electronic devices such as phones, tablets and laptops on flights for safety reasons.

Most airlines encourage passengers switch off their electronic devices during takeoff and landing because signals interfere with the aircraft's navigational equipment.

Recently, in a move to ramp up in-flight safety, providers including Singapore Airlines and Thai Airways have banned the use of portable chargers during flights.

Power banks are classed as lithium batteries which pose a potential fire risk as they are capable of generating extreme heat.

Last November, more than 100 passengers were forced to evacuate a Southwest Airlines flight from Denver to Houston after a phone battery burst into flames, causing a seat to catch fire.

The Federal Aviation Administration said there have been at least 500 incidents involving lithium batteries causing smoke, fire or extreme heat on US flights since 2006. (London Evening Standard)