United flight UA236 was supposed to take passengers from Newark to Mallorca. Instead, it became a lesson in why teenage comedy and aviation security should never share a cabin.
It turns out that an eagle-eyed passenger had seen a Bluetooth device listed with the name 'BOMB' and alerted the flight attendants. They, in turn, contacted United's operations center in Chicago, which gave specific instructions on how to deal with the issue.
In the end, it appears that the call to divert the plane was made by the airline in Chicago, which also contacted local enforcement to meet the plane once it had landed.
On the ground, the pilots were ordered to taxi the plane to a remote part of the airfield where passengers were deplaned via mobile airstairs and put in buses back to the terminal building, where they had to undergo TSA rescreening.
It remains unclear whether the Bluetooth device was named 'BOMB' as part of a deliberate prank, although reports indicate that a teenage passenger later admitted to being the owner of the device.
PYOK
Bluetooth is short-range. Stupidity, apparently, is transatlantic.
Previously:
• Fed up with noisy upstairs neighbors? These tenants took revenge with devilish sound pranks!
• Reverse-engineering a connected Furby toy, revealing its disturbing security defects
• Harsh but funny way to get your neighbors to turn down their music
