A United Airlines flight bound for Spain turned around over the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday night after a suspicious Bluetooth device name triggered a security scare aboard the aircraft, according to passenger accounts and airline officials.
Flight 236 departed Newark Liberty International Airport around 6 p.m. Saturday for what was supposed to be an eight-hour journey to Palma de Mallorca. About two hours into the flight, concerns over a Bluetooth device with a suspicious name prompted the aircraft to return to Newark, the Associated Press reported.
A spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration said the flight, carrying 190 passengers and 12 crew members, landed back in New Jersey at 9:37 p.m. It took off again and eventually landed in Spain hours later than originally planned.
The route of United Flight 236 as it turned back toward Newark.
Arkansas native Jordan Moore, who was a passenger on the plane, told Gothamist that she spotted the word “BOMB” on her smartphone’s Bluetooth device options after another passenger alerted the airline’s staff of the device name during takeoff.
Moore said the flight wasn’t immediately stopped, but the captain eventually asked everyone to turn off their Bluetooth devices or the plane would have to turn around. Most passengers obliged, until the suspiciously named device was the only one still listed as a network, she said.
“At first, I wasn't necessarily worried at all. I was just like, 'It's a Bluetooth network,'” said Moore, who was on the last leg of a three-flight journey to Spain from Little Rock, Ark., with her friend Hayley Harmon. “But then, the captain came overhead and was like, 'This is the final warning,' and they didn't turn it off. Every single person has every device off and it still said ‘BOMB.’ That is a little concerning.”
She said dozens of law enforcement officials and emergency vehicles were waiting for the plane once it landed back in Newark.
“Finally, the doors open and all kinds of cops come on board, like, they're in the front, the back, the middle of the plane, they're just absolutely everywhere and they, one by one, shuffle us off the plane,” she said.
Hayley Harmon and Jordan Moore after United Flight 236 returned to Newark.
Moore said passengers were asked to leave their bags on the plane and were made to board shuttle buses back to the New Jersey airport.
That’s when she noticed the situation had gained traction on Reddit, where another passenger had shared what was happening aboard the plane.
“ We were tired, we were exhausted, at least it was providing us a form of entertainment,” she said.
Eventually, passengers were allowed to reboard the plane and take off again for Spain, landing there many hours after they had originally planned.
“ We got here around 4 p.m. [Sunday], got to our hotel, immediately changed into swimsuits and went straight to a little beach club and had sangria and tapas,” she said.
