United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert
simpleflying.com
simpleflying.com
Those terms have senses that people in aviation take extremely seriously, for extremely good reasons. A miscommunication can trigger a lot of life-critical emergency mode sudden effort and stress for people. Effort and stress that is occasionally extremely necessary.
It made sense, once I thought of it.
In this particular case, it sounds like it wasn't the teen's fault, nor even a teen being slightly edgy. Just an innocuous product that broadcast a very unfortunate name over Bluetooth. Not something most people would've predicted would be a problem.
Yet, under the circumstances, with the information available, it also sounds like personnel were correct to follow the processes that were designed to prevent terrible disasters.
Do you think terrorists are really going to name their Bluetooth speaker "bomb"? Do you think this behaviour has any meaningful true positives?
This is the kind of brainworms thinking that has people throwing our their 150ml liquids out at TSA and taking their shoes off.
Then you quietly divert to the nearest airport. Asking for the speaker to be turned off on PA and then chugging all the way back to Newark makes it plain nobody was acting seriously.
2. Did the captain, flight control, and everyone else who needed to decide, have definitive information that the report was only an innocuous Bluetooth advertisement for an innocuous consumer device, and somehow knew that no other threat was going on? If not, then I'd commend whomever decided to follow protocol, and err on the side of inconveniencing a lot of people, rather than risk tragedies that the protocol was designed to prevent.
Demanding that people disable Bluetooth does not seem reasonable. If there's an actual bomber, tipping them off that you're reacting to their threat might lead them to set off the bomb early. Similarly, demanding that someone shut off the "Free Palestine, F Zionists" WiFi network or the flight crew will call the FBI is counterproductive; if that's cause to call the FBI, just call them. A warning lets the person cover their tracks.
For the record, "BOMB" is probably cause to call the FBI and "Free Palestine, F Zionists" by itself almost certainly isn't, but is something to mention when calling them about "BOMB".
They probably do have to treat it seriously just in the unlikely chance it turns out to be some mentally unstable person's way of legitimately making a terroristic threat. But it also needs to be treated similarly to a drunk and violent person who needs to be duct taped to their seat until they can get handed off to the authorities.
Terrorists have a pretty long history of making these kinds of basic operational errors, and if you don't act like they may be real, you miss the opportunity to disrupt/prevent these operations.
If you act like they're real you're just going to end up suffering alarm fatigue because the number of actual instances is just so astonishingly low.
Besides that, the terrorists win by creating fear. No damage is necessary. People being afraid to fly is the terrorist's main goal. To get you to think they could be anywhere and are everywhere. It's called a terror campaign because the literal goal is to create terror. Casualties are just a good way for them to achieve that goal, but far from the only way. We spend billions a year to fight a near non-existent threat.
- You have an actual bomb that's been slipped onto someone else's stuff that is cellphone triggered; perhaps when you get to UK cellular service, perhaps after cabin altitude + time, or whatever. Making the announcement doesn't hurt at all. You want to turn back in this case.
- You have a person who has a device with a name in bad taste, either because of humor or malice. Making the announcement doesn't hurt at all. You would rather not turn back in this case. They might turn it off.
- You have a person who is controlling the actual bomb on the plane. Making the announcement or turning back or even continuing -- it doesn't matter. Your moves are visible to them.
- 0.001%
- 99.998%
- 0.001%
I'm sorry, but the risk is just stupid low. There's only 2 lotteries in America that you have a better chance of winning than these absurdly conservative odds (no lottery if you use non-conservative statistics).
I'm sorry, but even if there were a dozen bombing attempts a year this would still be an absurdly safe activity given the shear volume of flights per day.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_airliner_bombing_a...
I do think we overreact on security matters, but I do think it's reasonable to not head over the Atlantic with something labelled "BOMB" if you can't figure it out.
I think if you set the amount of security to zero you'd get more bombings. Before 1990 we had a 2-3 per decade. This may not sound like much, but given that we have about 0-0.5 airliner crashes with fatality per year, it would be a significant contribution.
I agree with your comments more often than not, I empathize with your annoyance, but if you play out the game theoretic consequences there are no non-annoying outcomes. I don't like it but that's how it is.
Low probability events with outsized consequences are very difficult to reason through. One potentially chipped thermal insulation ceramic tile, should we engage reentry or not. What are the odds that the tile did get chipped, what are the consequences if it did.
The only good way to play this is for a country to not act in ways that motivates potential acts of organized terrorism. That would leave only the positively deranged solitary cuckoo brains to deal with.
> What would have been your estimated odds, of a plane hitting twin towers out of malice, a day before 9/11 happened.
> Low probability events with outsized consequences are very difficult to reason through.
Remember, I didn't say the odds are 0, I said these are extremely black swan events. In fact, there's a lot of more likely ways to die on a plane that are far more likely. If you aren't afraid of those, then your fear is fear, not reality.
I think the only way to play this is to ensure that terrorism against us continues to be only rare, unorganised black swans and not an act of any organized and motivated entity.
Coming back to this case. Say this was an operational error by incompetent terrorists. The pilot reports the observation but does nothing. The bomb goes off. Now the pilot and the airlines are made a bunch of scapegoats. They are declared professionally incompetent and insurance cover is denied to their family.
I can well imagine current administration doing exactly that, throwing the pilot and the crew under the bus. The 911 first responders were and they weren't even in a position to prevent it. Maybe the pilot and crew can imagine that too and in that case they took a rational decision.
Do not forget that this
https://youtu.be/_uYpDC3SRpM?si=lOWfqPEPCxTGu_Vj (Jon Stewart to the Congress for first responders)
is the society we live in.
> Now the pilot and the airlines are made a bunch of scapegoats.
> is the society we live in.
There's so many real and big problems in the world. We don't seem to care about those things and we end up fighting about the name of a device? Something that is trivial to go about your day ignoring?
Another take: the likelihood of getting struck by lightening surely dictates what you do during a thunderstorm? In the same way that the likelihood (or lack there of) dictates how often you buy lottery tickets.
If we didn’t attempt to mitigate terrorist attacks at all, would they be as infrequent as they are now? I know that’s not really what you’re saying, but surely likelihood is extremely dependent on circumstances.
> what you do during a thunderstorm?
If you make a habit of running around in thunderstorms in an open field holding a metal rod in the air, then the likelihood suddenly increases A LOT.
What I mean is, the odds are only low that you get struck by lightening because precautions are taken place during lightening storms. In the same way, we only know the statistical likelihood of a terrorist attack involving an airplane in the current, overly cautious, context.
Sure, a lot of it is probably security theater, but I think the whole "don't talk about bombs on an airplane" is probably a pretty solid blanket rule.
If we stopped teaching kids what to do during a lightning storm, and if we stopped being overly cautious about airplane security, surely we would see both of those statistic move in the opposite direction.
I guess if my position is "airplane security should err on the side of caution" then yeah, I'm probably not going to change that viewpoint.
edit: Ah now I get it, you were accusing me of being AI.
But we've also got to factor in
A) How likely is it that this bomb is going to have some bluetooth component? It seems like needless complexity, so we should weigh strongly against this. Further, it's less likely that our hypothetical terrorist needs to have expertise in this domain as well.
B) How likely is it that he would clearly paint the word "BOMB" on the side of his device (figuratively, of course, since this is digital)? That's amazing levels of stupidity. And then intersect that with the claim that he's competent in all the other things (bomb making, sneaking through security, making a bluetooth trigger for his bomb) but is so incredibly stupid that he'd label it a bomb.
Factoring all of this in, godelski is being far too generous in assessing this with odds similar to finding the winning Powerball ticket outside the front door while simultaneously being hit by lightning.
I acknowledge that the airline captain has some responsibility for our security. But part of this responsibility is being a steward for our overall well-being. And in this case, the "security" aspect is so vastly overwhelmed by the damage it did to passengers in other ways, that it was obviously a bad call on the captain's part.
It's exactly why I'm telling people they are being crazy in this thread. Because people are still defending the "Free Palestine, F Israel" device name as if it's a threat. The supposed threat there is that this starts a fight on the plane. To which the obvious answer is to arrest the person that gets so irritated by a trivial to ignore protest that they decide to start a fight on a plane. Arresting the person making the tacky protest is crazy. The logic people are arguing for is "arrest an annoying person because their annoyance might cause a crazy person to act crazy". Why isn't the answer "arrest the crazy person?" This whole thread is batshit levels of insane
For example, the risk of not wearing your seatbelt on the motorway is high because, even though most journeys will not require a seatbelt to stop any negative effects, if something bad happens it will become very high risk without the seatbelt.
Without the negative effect there is no risk, so it's not just probability.
Or it's scary because it means we're going to go to war? Then why aren't we scared sooner? Be scared of the thing that causes people to want to blow up planes. It's not like they just wake up one day and a country decides it's going to blow up a plane. Our government spies off so many people and the result is we're still scared to get on planes? What a waste of money
That's not a sane way to do risk management. You have to be able to use common-sense human judgement as well as situational training.
And common-sense human judgement would tell you that, even if the possible effect is a plane full of people blowing up and that starting a war, the likelihood of that occurring because you didn't yell at a teenager to turn off a Bluetooth device is so infinitesimally small that it's not worth considering.
> As soon as you declare the possible effect to be effectively infinite in magnitude, you can justify any level of response to any level of risk.
The possible effect is not effectively infinite in magnitude, and no, it does not justify any level of response. Even if a rogue state decided to bomb a plane, that would not justify a nuclear strike in response.
The common sense that you urge is already being applied, and based on well established, well tested protocol. It's not authoritarian to tell someone to turn off their bluetooth on an aeroplane because they named it in an offensive way. That's common sense.
> Your first two statements are a straw man
You can't just make a strawman and then when someone calls you out on it claim that they're making a strawman.
Though I'll admit, you gave me a good laugh. But troll harder. Either try harder to sound like an intellectual or learn more into the crazy fingers in your ears "la la la" character
To qualify even for the 'far end of reasonable', you'd have to divert the plane. Returning to origin, especially when the origin is not one of the 10 closest airports and is in a much more densely packed urban area (with a much more harrowing approach) than any of those 10 renders this entire incident totally unserious.
There are real actual safety concerns to address in aviation. This doesn't make the top 1,000 list. It's wasted effort in a world where economy of opportunity is significant.
If you'll actually read the article, federal law enforcement was being called in this situation as well.
But some people are really dumb when it comes to having common sense with respect to tech (or non-tech too, hehe).
(1) Either you believe the threat is credible and you put it down at the nearest suitable airport in the least amount of time. Say Sydney at about 200km to your west, or FSP at 150km in the direction you're going (not a great fit, but doable). In both cases you could probably land within 20 minutes, a bit more if you aim for Gander (Fun history for that airport, great as an emergency diversion).
(2) or, you believe the threat is not credible. At this point you might as well continue the flight. Flying 90 minutes back does not seem (to me) to meaningfully reduce the risk if someone is actually planning to trigger a bomb anyway.
But I do know what it's like working in a draconian safety-crazy job where if you're caught not following a safety-related SOP you're basically fucked.
I can't blame them too much.
(3) the contrapositive, where you continued the flight, it really was someone stupid enough to name the broadcast name of a bomb "BOMB", it goes off, and now you have to explain to the press "we thought nobody would be stupid enough to really name it 'BOMB'"
So you assume it's a low risk event, and tell everyone onboard to turn off their devices to remove the chance it's just someone making a bad joke or a coincidence, and then you end up with the outcome of trying to avoid having to say that in a press conference where everyone is already primed to think you didn't do enough.
2) How likely would a bomb's name really be "BOMB" vs anything else? If the latter is any higher, wouldn't it be reasonable to always turn around whenever the any other name shows up? In that case, all Bluetooth devices should be strictly banned in the cabin. But TSA is not doing that (not yet).
I want to think the answer is both. But I cannot think of an example where #2 has actually happened in history resulting in injury or death.
Protocol would be quietly diverting to the closest airport. They didn’t do that. They chugged back to Newark. After making a visible scene on the PA. This was a hissy fit.
Sorry, you teed it up too well. I had to!
The staff's primary concern probably was not an actual bomb, but a prankster intentionally trying to create panic with elderly and technically illiterate.
It's as if multiple airline employees' and other officials' brains were simultaneously unable to process any sentence that starts with "If it was an actual bomb, then why..."
Instead, everyone applied the same rudimentary "IF [bomb mentioned in any context] THEN [take the most extreme actions written in the playbook]."
The bomb aboard Pan Am Flight 103 (the Lockerbie bombing) was hidden inside a Toshiba 'BomBeat' RT-SF16 radio.
And as correctly mentioned by others, we shouldn’t be concentrating on an ideal game theory spherical terrorist in a vacuum.
Taboo is a shitty communication feature. Taboo demands active silence in a system with too much entropy for that to be feasible. It would be far superior to train everyone to say "good crash" (and respond appropriately) instead.
Words only have meaning in context. The whole point of instating a taboo is that you control the context. Rather than use that control to introduce danger to words, we should use it to isolate danger from words.
What you are advocating is silence, which implies confidence in the communication stream, which is the opposite of what we want.
We already knew that silence is hard to distinguish from signal noise, which is why we say copy instead.
I'm not making a distinction between silence as a pause and silence as keeping your mouth shut, because that distinction is irrelevant. In either case, nothing is communicated, because a pause is indistinguishable from a failed copy (something said that came through as signal noise).
You are advocating for the avoidance of specific words. That's a problem, because both the circumstances surrounding word choice and the signal itself have high entropy. You cannot reasonably expect the sound "bomb" to never be heard over a radio. It might be from a failure to obey the taboo, or it might be from a totally different and irrelevant signal that sounded to someone like "bomb". Signal and hearing simply don't work that way, and neither does society.
If you want to avoid miscommunication, the only feasible option is to accommodate the entropy of the communication system and the entropy of its participants.
You know how they ask you if you have any contraband or if you’re a terrorist or whatever?
You’d be surprised at how many people get busted because they answer truthfully
Would I? For contraband maybe with naive tourists who just don’t know that what they’re carrying is considered contraband, but I would love a source on a single terrorist being caught because they confessed after being asked in a form.
1. failing hard: Is $trigger_word in the context of an attack, or is it innocuous? Failing hard then assessing the context question later is at least a simple system to design and implement safely. And an adversary can't pentest it. I mean they can, but they'll fail hard every time no matter the context. And that is very expensive for the attacker.
2. failing soft: throw away your too large container of liquid. I'm not sure what this liquid container rule prevents. In any case, an adversary can pentest this as often as they can buy a ticket, and they'll just blend in with all the other grumpy passengers forced to throw out their containers of liquid and continue on through security.
3. don't touch the spaghetti makefile: add a specific rule about removing shoes after the relevant attempt at an attack. Also, let's keep it for decades because no politician wants the liability of having voted to remove a TSA rule in the case of a future attack.
Conflating these all under a single "brainworm" category tells me you are exactly the kind of person who shouldn't be in charge of designing a secure system!
There's no mystery to an attacker. Now it is known to all that trigger words are part of airline security SOP. Attacker tradecraft will be refined.
Yes. Not every time. But some of the time. Like imagine someone likes to stay organized and they have a bunch of bluetooth devices and gives them all logical names, speaker for speaker, keyboard for keyboard and bomb for bomb. They make a mental note to change the name of bomb before deploying it but then life happens and they forget to fix it.
If they knew it was a BT speaker, they wouldn’t have returned.
OTOH, who would name a bomb with a Bluetooth transceiver in a way that advertises its function. I’d use something like “pacemaker” so that nobody would ask me to turn it off.
> This is trying to sanewash totally insane levels of risk aversion.
| During this incident, a Wi-Fi hotspot named "Free Palestine, F Zionists" prompted the pilot to issue a warning to the cabin, telling the passenger responsible that they had "30 seconds" to remove the name or the FBI would meet the aircraft.
We've just grown accustomed to security theater. Don't forget, this security theater has resulted in more deaths than 9/11 ever did[0,1,2]
[0] Indirectly. The friction in air travel leads to more people driving, which is objectively a more deadly form of travel. We're talking several orders of magnitude, so even a low percentage of people shifting from air travel to car means substantial numbers. That means your risk of dying or being injured in a car crash also increases because it means more people are on the road. It's not a function of how good of a driver you are, it is a function of how good of a driver they are. So you really do want more people flying
[1] https://www.govexec.com/management/2012/11/tsa-killing-us/59...
[2] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=677549
Just greping for 'Israel' or 'Palestine' gives 13 incidents, the latest occurring in 2000.
It's a quite large share of the hijackings on the list, much more so that I'd have imagined de novo.
Reading through a few of them, most of the hijackers had a fair bit of mental instability (duh?). So, I could totally see them naming a bluetooth something crazy if they had them those days.
Also, most of the incidents ended up being fairly well handled and there weren't many casualties. But if I were a pilot and I were getting paid regardless of turning the plane around or dealing with a possibly fatal multi-day saga, I'd likely just turn the plane around too.
The pilot should be fired effective immediately.
edit: oh you mean the "f z" guy
Airline pilots are morally and physically responsibile for the lives on their aircraft. This necessitates respect for their authority.
Like other professionals, they must compartmentalize personal beliefs and professionalism.
Playful antics and silly BS, whether it be for the lulz, politics, or anything else, is a disrespectful act of defiance to the individuals you entrust to deliver you safely to your destination.
They are the final authority in flight, and have broad discretion they must exercise prudently with a bias for risk aversion.
I've known 2 airline pilots. They are the most even keeled people I've ever come across. Literally, the coolest and calmest people.
The system (should) weed out anyone who would act unprofessional, like letting their political beliefs cloud their judgment.
> Oh believe me, I would if I could...
> The system (should) weed out anyone who would act unprofessional, like letting their political beliefs cloud their judgment.
26 years ago. That is not a current thing and isn't relevant.
I’d also be very wary of recency bias when looking at the extremist fringes of religious and political situations that have been ongoing for centuries. We might feel a couple decades is a long time, but in conflicts all parties can veto the other parties subjective interpretations.
Quite relevant in terms of? Security (theater?) measures that have been allowed to continue?
> you have the right to express it
Out in public sure. In an airplane you're in someone else's private space (ie the airline's) and everyone is not only confined with you in minimal comfort, they have no way to leave. Trying to 'own' the space in this context is a dick move. If I'm a traveling passenger I don't want to be subject to your political ideas/religious sentiments/music preferences/sporting affiliation or whatever else. Besides the irritation it may or may not inflict on other passengers, it's an unnecessary burden for the flight crew, who are going to have to field any complaints about it.
In short, please stow your rights in the overhead container or in your checked baggage and respect other peoples' right to be left alone.
Ah yes, the classic "your politics," but of course the person having this opinion's politics are perfectly fine, because they're the "normal" person with the "normal" politics, not like that crazy person who thinks some randos shouldn't be the subject of genocide. How dare they!
> I’m not sure broadcasting a WiFi endpoint meets my threshold for “loudly”
"Loud" is in your face. "Loud" is hard to ignore. "Loud" is you'll know even if you take no action.
I agree, and I think most people do, that it's not a great idea to annoy other people, but it's magnitudes worse to start a fight over someone being incredibly low amounts of annoying. I'd long defend the lunatic who yells at the person who keeps bumping their seat than the person who yells at someone for the same of their SSID. Both are crazy, but come on, the latter isn't even defensible in the slightest. It's so easy to ignore and it's not like it's actively bothering you unless you let it
What does a Bluetooth device's nickname have to do with leaving people alone?
That is a very, very, very different statement than "I'm calling the FBI."
You're talking about should or shouldn't. The issue here is past that point: whether it's then right to involve people who are empowered to take away your physical liberty, and worse.
Can you imagine how it would be if every contract you sign had a "I own you now, no backsies"?
For example, at home, I'm free to walk around nude and scream.
On a plane, I'm not.
On planes in general, many people jump nude for their 100th skydive - the original and best video of this has been scrubbed from youtube, but a quick search shows others.
Often screaming is included.
But if you want to f$ck around and find out, I'm sure it will make for a fun "How I Ended Up On the No Fly List" story.
It's a tale as old as the USA
Long story, short version - it doesn't always involve sex and isn't always restricted to toilets.
More US censorship. Nude skydiving, terrible. Indepth reviews of how to kill things with insane levels of weaponry? Featured video time.
>>this is even written somewhere in the contract between you and the airline that you agreed on
What I wanted to say is that you'll never give up any civil liberties because of a contract alone. If the contract can take those away it's because a law never gave them to you in those circumstances in the first place, so you never had them to begin with.
I just wanted to make it clear that you cannot agree to give up something that the law gives you. If the law doesn't give you something, you have nothing to give up.
Freedom of speech is the peak of this. People think it means "I can say whatever I like wherever I like". But that's not what it is. The government cannot make laws curtailing speech (though, it does... enforcement and interpretation don't line up with the original intent). You can, however, sign an NDA which curtails your speech. A business can kick you out for saying something they don't like. An employer can fire you for saying "poodle" one too many times.
And that's what we are dealing with around airlines. They absolutely can kick you off the plane and ban you for almost any reason. For what you say, wear, or because they don't like how tall or short you are.
The law really only protects a few things. Your race, your gender, your religion. Everything else is fair game for a private institution to discriminate against. They can kick you off a plane because you are a journalist. They can kick you off because you won't quarter soldiers. They can kick you off because you don't submit to a search of all your property.
> The law gives very few liberties.
> Freedom of speech is the peak of this.
Don't confuse positive and negative rights[0]. Freedom of speech is something that can only be taken away. It is never something that can be given to you.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights
That is nonsense. "Freedoms" and "rights" are inherently social constructs. What does it even mean to say you "innately have" freedom of speech? That is a borderline religious claim, like saying you innately have a soul.
I see you’re confused about the concepts. You’re mixing “things that are legal (sometimes)” (smoking, but not on the plane) and “rights that you have all the time” (freedom of speech, even on a plane). Your employer can’t take your kidney because your contract says you must give one if you’re late to work even if giving away a kidney is legal. But you can still agree to give it if you want to.
If you have the same rights given by law then you can’t have any restrictions on those rights that aren’t in the law. Your rights have the same restrictions they always had and a contract can’t add a couple more. So you have your freedom of speech that a contract can’t take away, the law already defines the restrictions. But a restriction to smoke in the bathroom, which was never your right to begin with, is fine because the law never gave you the right to smoke in a plane bathroom.
You have your rights or you don’t. Calling this a technicality is a lame cop out.
Now you could argue (but you didn’t) that “broadcasting” the word “bomb” on a plane doesn’t constitute free speech. You’re not allowed to yell this at a concert either, it depends if broadcasting (not reading the BT spec to see who initiates the communication) a BT name and shouting are equivalent. But I can’t imagine saying “free X, screw Y” is anything but free speech for anyone not on Y’s payroll. A contract can’t put a restrictions on expressing opinions without them already existing in the law. Do you think there’s a law that says “free to state your opinion except on planes”?
The reason you can't give away your kidney in an employment contract is because there is a specific law banning that: the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984, which bans transferring a human organ in exchange for valuable consideration.
That's incorrect. In fact this is exactly what all contracts do.
Similarly, it's entirely possible to enter into a contract limiting your freedom of speech.
The entire point of a contract is to promise to do, or not to do, something that you could have freely chosen to do or not to do under the law without any contract.
I think the reason for the captain not liking you is secondary and could get him fired but it’s still: mess around in federal airspace, deal with the feds. Follow all instructions of all flight crew or you’re a criminal, regardless (I think).
Not actually the FBI though is it? Captain probably wanted to sound serious (mission accomplished).
I think he would face discipline from his airline after the fact, but in the moment, he is in charge.
This is pretty wide of the mark. They have a lot of authority, yes, as it's the flipside of the flight's safety being their responsibility. They still aren't allowed to assault a passenger, say, or commit tax fraud, or needlessly break the air laws.
Also, while the plane is en route? As in, the captain throwing someone out of the plane mid-flight?
And yes, the captain's authority is greater while the plane is en route compared to on the ground. En route the captain can divert pretty much anywhere if they think it's the right thing to do. They can dump fuel over the ocean or even over houses if they believe the alternative is worse. When the plane is on the ground realistically all they're going to do for anything is deplane everyone, either at the gate or via an evacuation.
What are some things Israeli settlers shout before they murder Palestinians? Shout a couple of those on a plane and see what happens.
And yeah, if it was ridiculous or violated some other law or something they’d eventually have to deal with the consequences of that, but while in the air, what they say goes.
The wifi name probably should have been ignored. But the incidents of people airdropping profane pictures to randos on planes...
Really?
The unsolicited dick pic is gross, but not even in the same category as the other stuff.
why are you defending unsolicited nude images so hard and who gave you the right to speak for everybody?
No matter how hard someone has been traumatized by unsolicited dick pics, I guarantee they’ll be traumatized in an entirely different way by the same amount of unsolicited punches to the face.
Speaking from experience on both fronts.
You can have more than one category for shitty criminal behavior you know.
But absolutely nothing will make a photo popping onto your phone a violent act.
Words mean things. I know it's popular to pretend they don't and anything can be anything as long as we say it long enough and loud enough, but that's simply not true.
Don't like it? Should've worn a T-shirt.
Your wife founds another one in your back pocket later that day, and has questions.
What, you practically asked for it. Should've zippered that pocket. An open pocket is practically an invitation for everyone to put their stuff into it.
> I don't know what the right answer is to people doing weird stuff in enclosed places with a captive audience is.
Seriously, think about the fear here. That someone's trivial to ignore tacky political statement causes what problem? That it causes a fight to erupt? Arrest the person who actually starts the fight.
Do not police the actions of reasonable people just because they might upset unreasonable people. This is absolutely insane! You are just creating a world of Karens and crazy people by enabling them. The people that should get in trouble are the ones who start a fight.
FFS we're talking about a device's name. How often do you even see other device's names? Are you just staring at the WiFi and Bluetooth broadcasts all day? That's mental! You only see it when you switch to the plane's WiFi and then it is done. Over. You don't have to see it again. Anyone that is upset enough to start a fight over such a little thing should absolutely be arrested because they are clearly going to start a fight over some other absolutely bullshit and arbitrary thing. That's a person that is looking for a reason to be upset. That is a person looking for a reason to be angry. That is a person looking for a reason to start a fight. That is a person who is mentally insane.
If it was seen by nobody, it wouldn't be named that way.
And it wouldn't be brought to captain's attention.
Also: there are 300 people on a large flight. A lot of people put their phone in airplane mode, and then have to reconnect their Bluetooth headphones.
>You don't have to see it again.
You don't have to see it once.
The airplane isn't a place for political rallies, and the captain figured that one person seeing this is enough.
>Anyone that is upset enough to start a fight over such a little thing should absolutely be arrested
I agree, and that's what the captain said.
The captain asked for the person to shut that device off.
They didn't. They were willing to start a fight over it.
Whoever reported the stupid Bluetooth name wasn't starting a fight. That was a non-confrontational act.
The captain wasn't starting a fight. He gave an order.
The edgy passenger decided to fight and not comply with the captain's directions.
>That is a person who is mentally insane
Indeed.
Yes, but on an aircraft the captain is the dictator. They can do basically whatever they want within the confines of law and company policy - and honestly with enough seniority, which the captain on a transatlantic flight has a lot of - they can probably ignore company policy once or twice and get away with it and keep their job.
As far as I'm aware there is no law preventing the captain from deciding to go back because they don't like one of the passengers blasting their opinions to the entire aircraft. What the opinion is, its levels of subjectivity or objectivity, and whether or not it's popular is completely irrelevant.
> blasting their opinions
Anyone being pissed off and willing to start a fight over a device name should be committed. Put that person in jail, not the person with the tacky device name. Otherwise you are just creating a world where you police the behavior of reasonable people because they might upset unreasonable people. Police the behavior of the unreasonable people.
If a fight breaks out then arrest the person that started a fight. But if your argument is "we can't let X happen because it might start a fight" then maybe consider stop serving alcohol before you get all uppity on some tacky device name
Think about this whatever you want. This system works, and the rules were written in blood.
Captain having the ultimate authority is the case on the high seas as well. We have centuries of this being in place.
They would likely lose their job if they did it depending on if ALPA wanted to fight for them or not, but they absolutely, 100% have the legal authority to do this. Maybe it should change, and I'm sorry it hurts your feelings, but that's just objectively how it is.
But I'm not talking about whether the captain has final responsibility and authority for the operation of the aircraft.
I'm talking about whether it's sane to escalate directly from something that is very much not an explicit threat of violence, to involving people whose primary tools are suspension of physical liberty and acts of violence.
(Also, please note: that rule says two things. The captain has final authority, yes, but they are also responsible for the choices they make. It's not a free pass to do anything they want for any reason.)
It was for ignoring captain's orders.
They were asked politely once to shut off their device, and chose to ignore that order.
This is a bit of a signal.
If I can ignore seeing your neglected toenails tangled haphazardly around the sandiest pair of adidas flip-flops you possess, you can kindly ignore the SSID "Electronic Frontier Foundation", Karen.
Not only do the people have no way to leave, the owner of the place also has no practical way to make people leave, like they would for example in a restaurant. At least once the plane is in the air.
And the captain has to ensure the safety not only of the flying machine but also of the cabin. So I can absolutely understand the move here and the need to forbid everything that could incite violence in the cabin.
That would make me uncomfortable on the flight, and it's also one-hundred percent a political statement. One that is actively hostile to millions of Americans, and many more people outside of it.
That is up to the captain to decide.
1. In what way is it a risk to the plane? Or is the idea that we should not attempt to evaluate whether pilot's decisions are objective and reasonable? Is there some objective rule being used? (Or if an objective rule can't be stated, is it more like the pilot's feelings or mood about the passenger(s) at any particular moment?)
2. But if someone believes it's reasonable for pilots to turn planes around based on whether someone is wearing a pro or anti Biden/Trump shirt, etc. wouldn't the better solution for airlines to just proactively ban clothing, stickers, etc. with countries' flags, candidate names, political slogans, etc. rather than having pilots turn around planes midflight based on a whim(?), costing hundreds of people large amounts of time and money?
https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/contract-of-carriage.html
Rule 21 Refusal of Transport
Part H: Safety – Whenever refusal or removal of a Passenger may be necessary for the safety of such Passenger or other Passengers or members of the crew including, but not limited to:
5. Passengers who are barefoot, not properly clothed, or whose clothing is lewd, obscene or offensive;
> If passenger(s) are wearing a super pro or anti Biden or Trump shirt or Bluetooth/SSID name, is that a risk to the plane
> as what if there are other people on the plane who feel strongly in the other direction?
This is such an insane thing we're doing. We're policing the behavior of functioning adults because it might upset dysfunctional adults? Why the hell are we creating a society that protects crazy people? It's absolutely insane
Nudist flights for the easily terrorized.
2. Because any rational person understands that we need to coexist in a society with a spectrum of political opinion, and that a fucking access point name doesn't cross the boundary between safe and dangerous to society.
3. Because doing it for one and not the other is obviously biased and arbitrary and demonstrates that it's not an actual danger to the plane, it's just some asshole with a bad day choosing to exercise his authority over someone whose politics he dislikes. To severe consequences to both that person and everyone else on board the plane. That's not a society you want to strive for.
No it isn't. You can read that implication into it, but it's not "actively hostile" in the way that an "F... X" statement is, for any X, and it's a sign of how slanted the discourse is that you would consider them equivalent.
Can we just recognize how crazy of a scenario this is?
People start actual fights over small groups of other people, that neither of them know personally, who are chasing after a ball on a pitch.
Why would you let the crazy people run the world. If they're that crazy you put them in a hospital because clearly they need help
> If they're that crazy you put them in a hospital because clearly they need help
Oh believe me, I would if I could...
> Oh believe me, I would if I could...
And not all of the risks are about moving the cabin. Many of the risks are within the cabin and while some dickhead getting uppity at the pub will get collared by the police, it is a totally different problem while in the air.
So, while in the cabin, don't try to fuck around and find out. No one wants to find out anything. They just want to get to the other end of the trip.
> I think the point here is
Punish the dickhead getting upset over the easy to ignore and not that provocative of a thing.
Don't police functioning adults, police dysfunctional adults. Why is this even a contentious statement?
The issue is timing and consequences. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences.
Consider:
Person makes loud free speech statement - which though perfectly legal - is contentious. Person B gets upset and uses their freedom of speech to shout back.
At the pub:
Everyone else is uncomfortable and just want to get on with their day. But they can leave. Usually they at least make space.
The pub can ask the talkers to leave - either one or both, as it is their private property. And if violence occurs Bouncer/Police drag away the violent person without much likelihood of harm to others.
On the plane:
Everyone else is uncomfortable and just want to get on with their day. But they cannot leave! They cannot make space! There may be elderly next to kids of varying ages. There is no bouncer, police is even worse for business and affects everyone on the plane just wanting to get to their destination. Tight constraints mean physical violence is likely to hurt someone unrelated to the conflict.
And so Captains clamp down on contentious statements ASAP to make sure it doesn't escalate that far. You are allowed to make contentious statements, and they are allowed to ask you to leave, because the plane is not public property.
Nobody wants to fly next to the loud nervous talker. Or the crying baby. But people understand these actions are not by choice and so there is tolerance.
Contentious/provocative statements though? That's a choice. Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences.
It is better for everyone involved if the desire to spout views is simply delayed until the flight is over.
> Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences.
Your scenarios are nowhere near the one we're talking about. It's a WiFi device name. Do you know the SSIDs of your neighbors? When's the last time you checked?
It's not the equivalent of someone shouting or even talking loudly. You have to actively do things to see that device name. It is, without action on your part, invisible.
The scenario is closer to walking up to someone, asking what their shirt says, and then getting mad. This isn't someone getting in your face. You won't even know who owns the device!
You can simply connect to the plane's WiFi and then continue ignoring the names of all the other devices on the plane. You don't even have to connect to the plane's WiFi!
You're being absurd. Come on. It is so fucking easy to go about your life without ever knowing the device name of any person sitting on your plane. It's also incredibly easy to just let it go and move on with your life. Why are you letting such a dumb thing consume your mind and make you so angry? Why are you trying so hard to defend people who are actively looking to fight?
You can choose to make your SSID openly visible or not. It is "shouting" into the wifi space. And it was clearly visible in this case!
But see all other reasons in my previous statement why a Captain of a plane might choose to shut down "contentious" statements.
IE it is nothing to do with the statement itself. It is the time and place. Feel free to fight for a cause anywhere else.
"Freedom from consequences" is fundamentally what freedom is. Such a stupid slogan.
In theory that is covered already by laws against physical violence in whatever form they take.
> freedom from employment consequences
This crosses the line into private actions and property. Unless you mean government employees maybe? I don't think you will find many private employers who'd support the idea they'd have to keep employees no matter what they say, privately or publicly as that could lead to significant harm of the business reputation.
You've already got libel, perjury, obscenity, harassment limitations on "free speech". Just accept that it is not perfectly free and the reasons why are generally(feel free to pounce on the exceptions) for societal cohesion.
They turned what most passengers considered at most tasteless into a real threat worthy of returning to base. How can this possibly help with the stress? If this was to reduce stress, it was disproportionate and backfired in a major way.
Why are airlines adding to every part of that stress but drawing the line at a device's BT name?
Everything about flying is getting worse. The process of buying the tickets full of shady practices and dark patters, the check-in, the boarding process, the cabin luggage getting smaller for the same type of ticket, the ever more cramped seats, the removal of the old amenities like free food or snacks. They are all getting more terrible and adding stress. From what I can tell from my own ticket purchases with the same airlines in the past, the prices kept up with inflation over the past decades but the services have fallen far behind.
> Why are airlines adding to every part of that stress but drawing the line at a device's BT name?
Tacky device name: oh no! Someone might be offended and start a fight! We can't let that happen!!!!
This is so many levels of absurd and it's incredible how many people are defending crazy people. I never thought it would be contentious to claim that we should punish people for being tacky just because they might trigger people that are institutional amounts of crazy.
I mean if the real concern is that a fight might break out, well I sure know a bigger "social lubricant" than a tiny protest that most people are never ever going to see.
The only argument they are making is that you shouldn't be allowed to make you're device's name <Something Politically Tacky> because... it might make unstable and irrational people upset.
Why the fuck are we protecting unstable and irrational people? Punish them? What is so difficult about this? Seriously
You've posted 16 times in this subthread and seem unable to accept any other point of view than complete agreement.
> Do people get kicked out for offensive t-shirts
It's something that never should have happened in the first place. (I'm agreeing with you, but stupid shit does happen and we should stop enabling people to act so dumb)
https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2024...
Its not private space. Its public because they sell tickets. Its like going to any other event, and I don’t think there’s a constitutional exception to free speech on airplanes where you can’t express your opinions.
"not trying to make a political statement", but... Can we say, that Palestine is an enclosed space, considering its total land and sea blockade?
Oh, the irony
> The convention [...] recognises certain powers and immunities of the aircraft commander who on international flights may restrain any person(s) he has reasonable cause to believe is committing or is about to commit an offence liable to interfere with the safety of persons or property on board or who is jeopardising good order and discipline.
Is there some reasonable test? Could he do this for a band t shirt
> he has reasonable cause to believe is committing or is about to commit an offence
You're being unreasonable. Think about what you're saying. It's the equivalent of "You can't wear that shirt, someone might get offended and punch you in the face." We don't act like this in society. You arrest the person who throws the punch, not the person wearing the shirt. Just the same way you don't arrest a woman for wearing something slutty, you arrest the person who sexually assaulted them. This is the definition of victim blaming. It doesn't matter if the victim is increasing their odds of being victim (unless they are actively seeking out and attempting to become a victim).
Be reasonable. Punish the person who is actually committing the offense. Don't punish someone because of some imaginary offense.
Did you miss the part where the convention was ratified by 180+ countries, because clearly society can't just take a seat?
If you are in any way harassing people by shouting through the plane for example, I agree. But the SSID of a WiFi network isn't that. No one is forced to continually read the list of available hotspots over and over again. There is nothing special about the fact that it's on a plane here.
In fact, it's the other way around, it's because the right of free speech is recognized as a universal, natural right then the US Federal Government is not permitted to make a law suppressing speech. The First Amendment does not create the right. The right is there, naturally, whether or not the United States or its constitution or government exists. The First Amendment merely explicitly states that the government isn't permitted to impede that right.
Using the existence of the First Amendment to narrow free speech as a right to what the government is permitted to do and nothing else is a severe perversion of both the document and the beliefs of the framers.
In short, "it's a private entity doing it" is an incredibly poor defense of behavior that suppresses speech. It's like how young children will defend their rude or offensive behavior with "it's not illegal." The reason that's an unconvincing argument is that it's an incredibly low bar. The world is full of behaviors that may not be so universally offensive or outrageous that people have explicitly written down that nobody is every allowed to do that thing. It's actually a very small range of possible behaviors that that covers.
The only reason that there isn't a general law barring private parties from restricting the speech of others is (a) one's right to free speech does not necessarily negate another's rights in the same or a different area, (b) one's rights do not entitle one to the use of things owned by others against their desires, and (c) any such law could be used by the government to indirectly suppress other rights.
The narrow nature of the First Amendment is not to be taken as an implication that the right is narrow. It's an admission that the law cannot perfectly protect human rights.
And there are other human rights besides the right to free speech, which have to be balanced. One of them is the right to safe travel. That means people who are responsible for the safety of a planeload of people have to err very strongly on the side of being safe rather than sorry. And mature adults are suppposed to recognize that fact and not insist on exercising their free speech right everywhere they go, to the detriment of other rights.
> One of them is the right to safe travel.
Threats in airplanes, post 9/11, land different. “Free D.C., Fuck Americans” says something different to fellow passengers than “Free D.C.”.
Not crazy, not bonkers. Yes, a threat. And in an airline context: they are all treated as credible… that’s why your shoes get checked, and water gets stopped, and babies banana smoothies get confiscated because of potassium content.
Plus, there’s a red line from the PLO and hijackings through 9/11 to the current state of airline security. That’s not neutral, and not incidental, for an airline that knows recent history.
> that’s why your shoes get checked
Seriously, your chances of getting killed in a plane based terrorist attack is approximately zero. I know 9/11 happened and other attacks, but there's a fuck ton of flights that happen every single day.
Let's put it this way, I don't fear stepping outside my door and getting mauled by a bear. I'd also call anyone that is crazy. And the odds of that happening are >10000x more likely to happen than being subject to a terrorist attack.
Your fear is irrational
The founders believed in private property rights as much as free speech. Property was even a requirement for voting in most states.
This explains why Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty happily destroyed private property in the Boston Tea Party.
Anyway, airlines are hard because the basic problem is they’re public necessity still halfway regarded as private business. It’s also an unnatural situation that many people be forced to share such little space in “public”, and we’d likely have a different constitution were it always the case.
I don’t think this one will be addressed by principle from on high.
And Great Leader recently asked social media sites to provide details of critics.
The ship has sailed. The plane has crashed. The party is over.
There may be survivors, but right now it's too early to tell.
In short, a Pascal's wager and a demonstration that it is not easy to have good things.
And by the way, a terrorist is (by definition) someone who wants to incite terror in others. So any person knowingly broadcasting "we will all die” is a terrorist already.
Do you hear yourself? You're saying we should be irrational because there's irrational people. That we should send people to jail because they might upset an irrational person? You're sending the wrong person to jail. Are you crazy?
What I'm saying is that the decision whether or not something is considered a risk is completely at the discretion of the captain. And by accepting the terms of the airline when boarding the plane, you agree to follow the orders of the captain.
So if that captain says "turn it off", you turn it off. It's very simple.
But I give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you don't want to understand for the sake of confrontation, so I'll leave it at that.
Don't go putting people into boxes. That's the path of persecution.
You have the inalienable right to say what you want on a plane, limited by what the government is allowed to prosecute. In a confined space, that is a bit riskier. That's a solely personal choice - no laws are being broken. The Captain has the right to ask you to conform or leave, but that's a separate issue.
People are being overly sensitive. A wifi name is not a protest. It does not disturb personal privacy and tranquility. It's about as offensive as an article titled "We’re All Gonna Die!" from your favorite news outlet - which by the way, is not an uncommon headline.
What if my wifi name was "peanut butter for all!" but unbeknownst to me and by some rare cosmic coincidence everyone on the plane was deathly allergic to peanut butter. Does that make me a terrorist? No! But I swear someone would try to drag me through decades of litigation regardless. These people seem to have divorced words and meanings from the mechanics of how the world works. Like, "this piece of paper says you shouldn't say this, so off with your head".
It's not a separate issue, because the captain very likely will err on the side of caution if he has to decide whether you are a terrorist or a nihilist.
Similar to woke/wokism, these have become words used by far right extremists and politicians around the world to name anything that is against their hatred and opinions.
To you, who made up the scenario and specified that it's not a threat, sure, it seems that way.
To the pilot of an airplane full of people whose safety he is responsible for, even a tiny probability that it might be a threat has to be paid attention to. In real life you don't get to specify what "clearly" is or is not the case. People have to make judgment calls, and in certain contexts they are going to err very strongly on the side of being safe rather than sorry.
> Being on the plane doesn't remove your right to free speech
This is not a free speech issue. This is a safety and consideration for others issue. The right to free speech does not mean the right to ignore the predictable effects that saying certain things is going to have in certain contexts. We're all supposed to be responsible adults who understand that we can't push our pet issues everywhere we go.
> We've just grown accustomed to security theater.
Easy for you to say since you're not the one responsible for the safety of a planeload of people. This is not a "security theater" issue either. You don't have the right to trumpet your pet issue everywhere you go.
What if it had been named "Teddy Ruxpin is my friend", but the pilot doesn't know whether that's a secret code for "I'm going to release aerosol sarin nerve gas on the plane"?
Should he react to all messages as if they are threats, because no matter how small the risk is, more than zero is too much?
If you can't know whether something is a threat or not, the only reasonable response is to treat it as a non-threat. Anything else leads to absurd outcomes that make it harder to protect from real threats.
>The right to free speech does not mean the right to ignore the predictable effects What are the predictable effects for the scenario in question? Please enlighten us, because most of us are apparently unable to predict those ourselves.
I'm unable to find any connection between Teddy Ruxpin and sarin gas online, so I don't see why a pilot would make such a connection. Am I missing something?
> If you can't know whether something is a threat or not, the only reasonable response is to treat it as a non-threat.
Have you ever been in a position where you were responsible for the safety of several hundred people?
> What are the predictable effects for the scenario in question?
That not turning that Bluetooth device off when told to was going to end up delaying the flight.
This thread is discussing the “Free Palestine, F Zionists” WiFi hotspot and the threat to turn it off within 30 seconds or face the FBI. Which is explicitly not a threat, whereas “BOMB” in the context of a plane is more obviously a potential threat.
I don't see that as necessarily true. I can imagine many situations where F INSERT NAME OF ENTITY would be considered threatening. If they had F the captain of this plane, would the captain be wrong to feel threatened at all?
If someone gets up and yells “F the captain”, it is reasonable to be fearful that they might act on that sentiment, but the statement itself is not a threat; not an expression of intention (or in the former case, presence of an object that is intended) to inflict evil, injury, or damage.
The captain and established protocol follow what has been found to be useful and reasonable when on an aeroplane, not teenagers, jokers, or l33t haxx0rs, and asking people to turn off their bluetooth is reasonable, as is turning a plane around when they won't.
Asking people to turn their Bluetooth off can be reasonable in certain scenarios, like that of the “BOMB” incident. Saying “F <whatever>” is not a threat.
> Am I missing something?
And I'm unable to see the connection that you're imagining in the original post. What is it? Can you explain it to me? Is the threat here in the room with us now?
The word "bomb" has a particular significance in the context of an airplane full of people who can't escape.
If you don't think it should, start your own airline and advertise that you have no problem at all with people using the word "bomb" freely aboard your planes, and see how many customers you get.
To someone whose primary consideration is safety, like the captain of an aeroplane, your logic is entirely nonsensical.
No. But he should treat messages that are blatantly intended to provoke others as such. If someone on the flight is going out of their way to cause trouble, kicking them off is the smart move.
> This is not a free speech issue. This is a safety and consideration for others issue.
The only issue I can see that causing is a fight. And anyone that is willing to start a fight because someone has s stupid device name should be committed because they're insane. That's crazy amounts of petty.
Freedom of speech for me not thee.
You realize that calling everyone who criticizes an ongoing genocide an antisemite isn't workable, right?
At what point did I ever mention that?
It’s a nasty antisemitic thing to say, but that’s all it is.
Only time violence is involved is when drunk American or Israeli tourists get uppity, otherwise the protestors just stand there and make noise.
Not sure about the protesters, I usually try to keep my distance to avoid hearing damage.
Don't make this about party politics. The politics here is about if you're allowed to have a dumb SSID. IDGAF if that's "Fuck Gaza" or "Fuck Israel" or "Cheney shot a man then made him apologize" or "Obama is a Muslim".
We're talking about restricting the names of SSIDs that aren't in the category of "I'm going to blow up this plane". Seriously, this whole conversation is fucking dumb because people are acting on partisan politics and not on what's actually happening. I need a fucking beer, or 10
A threat? No.
I get my lighter through in Brazil all the time and a friend of mine got giant scissors through in Buenos Aires. It’s entirely a choice to freak out over nothing.
In most of the world you’re allowed to do outlandish things like have a beer at the mall. Or walk outside with one.
Flying is already a stressful experience - between security checks, waiting for flights, unruly passengers, super cramped seats etc. Why add more stress? Either protest seriously at an appropriate time/place or just use the airport for what it is, to go to your destination. Why get cute with ineffective methods of protest like changing WiFi name? In the end, all it achieved was hours of delay and even more stress to passengers, right?
For example I don't leave my house often, so a walking protest in the middle of a city has zero chance to reach me. HN post does.
Would you say the same if it praised Israels bravery? Honoured Charlie Kirk? Said anything you don't agree with?
I don't care if your SSID says "godelski smells bad", it's a silly thing to start a fight over.
Just be a functioning adult. Ignore it and move on with your life. It'll never affect you as soon as you decide not to look at it. It's really that easy
Stop making this about partisan politics. It was never about that
I really don’t think this is an uncommon opinion.
> Does naming WiFi hotspot to reflect one’s political views achieve anything?
Does action-less speech achieve anything? Advertising, PSAs, political campaigning, etc. all indicate its value in attaining mindshare. Moreover, freedom of expression is liberating for people.
Currently signalling support for Palestine is common online. In videogames in my country (Spain) every third player has some such signal (flag or phrase). It's not a serious protest, it's a sign of belonging to group x (whatever group x is), something teens in particular are big in signalling. It's not a big deal and reacting operationally as if it were is a huge security error.
They do not, it is all woke signaling to others.
They can put a pic up on Reddit, Insta and get updoots for it from all the genz maniacs.
If you wear a PLO shal you are basically a terrorist in my eyes.
Still doesn't make it OK, though.
While I agree with you that this was obviously a ridiculous overreaction, an air plane is not a public space. It's more akin to being in someones living room in that the pilot has absolute authority over whom to kick out for whatever reason. If they don't like your hair, they can have you escorted out by police if you don't comply. They won't do it normally because it's bad PR and their employer wouldn't like it, but they could. Not free speech amendment violated.
PIC authority is strictly limited to in-scope items, this very obviously wasn’t in scope unless it was e.g. causing other passengers to behave in an unruly manner.
Also, in another reply you state, "aircrew has actual legal authority which stems from the fact that they’re aircrew."
Do your pilot credentials include an ATP cert?
The PIC does not get to make a passenger blow him, just like he can’t come read your emails if he feels like it.
The PIC might not like a shirt you’re wearing, he can’t make you take it off.
>Do your pilot credentials include an ATP cert?
I’m lacking on the 1500 hours, but other than that, yeah.
Hmm. So by, "yeah," you mean, "no."
> The PIC does not get to make a passenger blow him, just like he can’t come read your emails if he feels like it.
Straw man much? A captain of a 121-op is not going to get on the intercom and ask for this ... and expect to keep their job. Given that most people don't know where the line is drawn, there is an expectation that you do need to follow all directions. There are definitely directions that, if not followed, result in committing a felony. The other side of the expectation is that of professionalism on behalf of the crew:
Google "professionalism" > It is a combination of competence, ethical behavior, and respectful communication.
You would do well to consider the effects of this statement before continuing too far past 1500 hours.
“Frozen ATPL” is the industry term, and I could never have imagined an adult trying to debate the difference when it comes to theoretical education (hint: it’s the same).
> There are definitely directions that, if not followed, result in committing a felony
So? Nobody is disputing that!
It’s certainly not a felony to disobey directions that are not relevant to flight operations or safety.
You’ve utterly failed to communicate what it is that you apparently disagree with me about, instead you’ve just dropped a bunch of unnecessary personal attacks.
False.
> Do your pilot credentials include an ATP cert?
An unnecessary insinuation that I’m overstating my credentials.
> Hmm. So by, "yeah," you mean, "no."
A direct allegation that I’m overstating my credentials. Given that only the theory part of ATP training has any relevance to this conversation, what was your purpose here if not to attack my character?
> Google "professionalism"
A rather more direct and entirely baseless accusation of unprofessionalism
> You would do well to consider the effects of this statement before continuing too far past 1500 hours.
An insinuation that I should not be flying planes because ???
That's likely a false statement, even if unintentionally so.
If the t-shirts print is offensive enough then I'm sure a strong enough argument can be made. After all, how are a "bomb" bluetooth name or a "free palestine" wifi ssid much different from a t-shirt with similar contents?
Try wearing a t-shirt with "I'm carrying a bomb and will blow this aircraft up" and see how far it gets you on your next flight. The crew (including the PIC) won't be amused.
> If the t-shirts print is offensive enough then I'm sure a strong enough argument can be made
I’m pretty sure I’ve explained this: if it is necessary for the safe operation of the flight, then yes.
The PIC does not get to do this because he personally finds your shirt offensive.
And that you as a pilot would personally not do that in many situations may be commendable, but doesn't mean others won't nor that they don't have the authority to do so since in the end of the day it would be hard to counter in court.
I have no idea how you could possibly interpret my comments like that.
> Lots of things can e argued to compromise safety, by claiming they cause fear in other passengers, by indicating aggressive attitudes of the wearer, but claiming mental instability. I'm not saying that any of this is good. See the BT or wifi examples. But not liking it doesn't change reality.
Now you are either just assuming dishonesty or falsely supposing that “can be argued” is the relevant test.
It’s a weird thing to debate in this manner, we’ve got endless legal precedents establishing the relevant standards. Absolutely no need to speculate.
> since in the end of the day it would be hard to counter in court.
No, it wouldn’t. Even legitimate cases of misbehaviour on aircraft rarely lead to prosecution (in the US).
Hm? It's what counts in court, so it is the only relevant test.
> Even legitimate cases of misbehaviour on aircraft rarely lead to prosecution (in the US).
People have been removed from aircraft by the police for decades. Yes, there is lots of precedence here. Whether in the end that leads to prosecution is secondary. What we are debating here is whether the PIC had the right to have them removed in these cases, and clearly they had.
If you have information to the contrary, I would like to be made aware because occasionally I have ended up stuck for hours in the air with unpleasant passengers.
Absolutely nothing to do with private property, especially considering that you can’t trespass people on a plane.
Maybe, maybe not. The Supreme Court of the USA has ruled that speech is not protected at all times and in all places. There are “time, place, and manner restrictions”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_Unite...
I have a hard time believing courts wouldn’t side with the captain here. All they have to say is they are in charge, perceived a threat to their crew, provided a chance for resolution, and ultimately played it safe. All of which are true.
Second, you know full well such name is not a threat, neither passive no active. The reason for that being not allowed is not a threat or abundance of other options. It has nothing to do with any of that. It is just a continuation of the above strategy.
In case you missed it, it was a different incident than the one we're discussing.
>You can, and should be able to, name your WiFi hotspot anything. Even any "Free <X>, Fuck <Y>" forall X,Y
Edgy idea, bro.
Not like a certain terrorist organization[1] with Palestine Liberation in its name[1] literally pioneered armed airplane hijackings for its cause, successfully[2] performing[3] quite[4] a few[5] of[6] them[7] back in the day.
> whatever your side is you have the right to express it.
You seem to have confused an airplane for a public square.
The captain of the plane determines the extent of your rights in-flight, taking many factors into account. Including the comfort of passengers.
You ain't got no "free speech" right to blast music on your Bluetooth speaker, and the same applies to edgy Bluetooth device names which everyone on board can see.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Front_for_the_Liberati...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawson%27s_Field_hijackings
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Al_Flight_426
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_840_(1969)
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Al_Flight_426
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Airways_Flight_255
And? What's your point? You're implying that a pro-Palestine WiFi network name could even slightly plausibly be interpreted as a threat to hijack an airplane? You can't be serious.
Also, the whole idea of being over backwards trying to stretch things into being interpreted as threats is absurd on its face. A threat is pretty much definitionally intended to be understood as a threat.
As a side note, why is it that in these discussions some people are so quick to equate anything critical of Israel with antisemitism, but we never see much push back in the other direction? I find your insinuation that expressing support for Palestine means you want to hijack an airplane to be wildly racist.
If you actually read what it says, don't miss the "fuck Zionists" part of it, and know the history — it is something that can, at the very least, make some passengers extremely uncomfortable.
>I find your insinuation that expressing support for Palestine means you want to hijack an airplane to be wildly racist.
I find that you have no understanding of the words that you're using.
For example, a "Zionist" is any person who wants the existing state of Israel to continue existing — in any form — as a Jewish state, in exactly the same way that Ireland is existing as an Irish state.
This includes people who advocate for a two-state solution for Palestine, and, arguably, consider themselves to be pro-Palestinian.
Calling for a two-state solution is one way to express support for Palestine.
Saying "fuck Zionists" is another.
At the very least, it's an expression of hostility rather than support.
History towards a large group of people (nearly all Israelis, including 2M Israeli Arabs, pro-Palestinian supporters in favor of 2 state solution, and at least 9 out of 10 Jews worldwide), some of whom are likely to be on any large flight.
Now, an airplane is a place you share with a lot of people who can't get away from you during the flight, subject to basic rules of politeness, and you doing what the captain tells you to do.
You don't get to play your favorite music out loud on your Bluetooth speaker, even though that's your first amendment right.
The same applies to edgy Wi-Fi / Bluetooth names, which are visible to everyone on board.
It's up to the crew to decide what is, and what isn't OK to for you to do to protect the peace of other passengers for whom they are responsible. Everybody staying calm and attentive to the crew is a safety concern.
And it's your legal obligation to do what they say, which the person in question didn't do.
Disobeying captain's command is absolutely something that merits talking to the FBI.
On a ship and on a plane, the captain is the law.
Which part of this do you need help understanding?
A zionist is someone who thinks Israel has a right to exist.
Then I am a zionist and I am white as snow.
I can point you to threads here on HN where negative things are said about Jews and the term “Zionists” is used interchangeably with “Jews”.
Are Jew and Zionist equivalent words in your opinion?
The Jewish Council of Australia is not going to name their hotspot “F Zionists”. Ultra Orthodox Jews are not going to use swear words to express their view.
I’ll go as far as say that anyone who genuinely wants Jews and Arabs to live in peace side by side is not going to go about it with antagonistic one-sided rhetoric.
That's completely untrue and this is either bad faith or you need to go outside more.
Here, I'll say it myself: Fuck Zionism.
I have no issue with Jews. I just don't like settler colonialism.
You do with at least the 95%+ of Jews who support Jewish self-determination in the Jewish homeland. That's all Zionism is.
Because Israelis were able to defend their newly created country from the Arab invasion in 1949 when it was created, and people of Palestine, which was created out whole cloth the same exact moment, didn't consider it necessary to put up any resistance to their Arab siblings.
That's why.
Perhaps because Palestinians themselves didn't really consider themselves to be a group distinct from other Arabs, and in a need of their own state, but you're welcome to field your guess.
Here's a friendly reminder that the "Arab state" known as Palestine today was created out of whole cloth from the same British Mandate, and was occupied by Jordan and Egypt right away.
More questions?
It was the Ottoman Empire, then British, then Israel.
Nothing about Zionism says so. People supporting a two-state solution are Zionists.
Also, side question: would you be happy if we returned to the pre-1967 borders of Israel and Palestine?
"Right to exist" is a misnomer.
Israel exists, and anti-Zionism is wanting it to not exist.
Palestine does not exist.
What exists is two geopolitical entities, West Bank and Gaza, which are:
- geographically separate, not even sharing a border
- historically coming from being occupied by different countries (Jordan and Egypt)
- ruled by different entities (PLO and Hamas, respectively)
- ...with different ideologies (PLO/Fatah is a secular terrorist group, Hamas/PIJ are fundamentalist Islamist terrorist groups)
- ...and have been at war with each other for the past 20 years - and are at war to this day[1] in spite of attempts[2] of other countries to mediate the conflict.
Sure, Yugoslavia also existed even though Yugoslavs weren't a thing.
It also didn't end too well, if you remember the 1990s[3].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatah%E2%80%93Hamas_conflict
[2] https://www.newarab.com/analysis/moscow-mediator-why-russia-...
[3] https://1997-2001.state.gov/regions/eur/fs_990331_ksvo_ethni...
Should Israel exist at all according to you?
Because of:
>I have no issue with Jews. I just don't like settler colonialism.
I feel you will say "No"
Some say yes but don't think they should "expand" by winning wars started by arab nations. Also wrong.
Its all signaling comming from you and people like you.
I mean, the real question is surely whether you think Palestine has the right to exist or what you think should be done. The Palestine side is the part that's really up in the air.
>Its all signaling comming from you and people like you.
And just what is this supposed to mean, exactly? Yeesh.
Not according to the official government of Gaza, whose political aim is ending the existence of Israel once and for all:
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/21st_century/hamas.asp
> Are you asking if I think Israelis should be kicked out of Israel? No.
Accepting the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish state (in the same way that Ireland is an Irish state) makes one a Zionist.
By the definition of this word.
>>Its all signaling comming from you and people like you.
>And just what is this supposed to mean, exactly? Yeesh.
It means you're using words and slogans whose meaning you don't care about because they sound nice to you.
You admit they're idiots, so why defend them?
Seriously, this conversation is making me dizzy
Should Israel exist at all according to you?
If you say no, you basically are saying "Fuck Jews" to 99% of Jews.- Linking some fringe group wont change that. :)
Either leftie or nazi, they both have the same views on Israel it is crazy.
The first is what we, Australia, beach headed for Jewish communities back in 1917. The second is deplorable behaviour that was initially somewhat excusable and has since degenerated into a sickness.
>settler expansionism
More and more meme words.
Yes or No?
The First Amendment only prevents the government from penalizing your speech. It doesn't stop a private company (airline) kicking you off an airplane for something you said or did.
The PIC (Pilot In Command, aka Captain) is the final authority for the safe operation of the flight (14 CFR Part 91.3). If the Captain determines that a threat exists, they are empowered to do pretty much anything reasonable to deal with the threat. Turning the plane around and landing is certainly in the realm of "reasonable".
Whether you or somebody else who is clearly not an airline captain feel the original actions constituted a threat is pretty much irrelevant.
Signed, airline captain.
> It doesn't stop a private company
> they are empowered to do pretty much anything reasonable to deal with the threat
I don't care what your politics are, that is not a reasonable nor credible threat. If there was a credible threat the conversation would be different, but it is a tacky political statement.
The bluetooth device's name was BOMB. We're trained to treat even vague threats seriously.
The captain in this case is in a terrible situation. Do nothing, get pilloried for not taking action. Turn around, get pilloried for that.
I hope I'm never in this position because there are really no good options. All of you making comments have not been in this position, and were not there at the time with the information the captain had access to, and so are not in a position to judge the decision.
> The bluetooth device's name was BOMB.
>> Read the story a bit more.
> If you said it in Germany you'd be considered a Nazi
I mean we do understand that "Israel", "Jews", and "Zionists" are 3 different things, right?
This isn’t a new idea either. The Polish ethnically cleansed much of their last remaining Jews in 1968 with a campaign against “Zionism”.
> Turning the plane around and landing is certainly in the realm of "reasonable".
Agreed. But doing it without the FBI threat would also be in the realm of reasonable. Which, it could be argued, means that making the FBI threat was unreasonable, or at least very close to it.
Beyond a certain point, even a PIC can cry wolf.
Our training is to treat even vague threats seriously.
But thanks for telling everyone you didn't read the entire article. I do appreciate when people tell on themselves
It really does break both ways. Over-reacting to perceived threats has a cost too.
Warning - semi-political (but hopefully non-partisan) political content ahead: This is the same thing the FDA does with drug approvals. They are overwhelmingly biased toward preventing bad drugs that they prevent access to a lot of things that could help. Studies show that the FDA's difference between up-side and down-side risk costs a lot of lives on net. For example, the FDA delayed the approval of beta-blockers (used to prevent second heart attacks) for several years after they were widely available and saving lives in Europe. Analysts estimate that this delay alone cost tens of thousands of American lives.
Sometimes, accepting a risk provides the greatest net benefit.
Y'know, if America didn't treat intercity passenger rail like garbage, we wouldn't be having this problem...
Being on a plane does 100% change the calculus of free speech. You can’t say something that threatens the life and safety of the people trapped on there with you. This is literally one of the canonical acceptable limits to free speech. It is typically presented as “shouting fire in a crowded theater”
You seem overconfident. For one thing, someone getting a Bluetooth signal has absolutely no confidence the device is genuinely only a speaker. For another, it is entirely possible that a nefarious actor could screw up and forget to turn off a wireless transmitter.
Can you imagine if the threat was real and news came out that the Bluetooth device name literally said what it was? People right here would be mocking the personnel for being so stupid that they ignored literally what was written in front of them.
> Though some have questioned why anyone intending to blow up a plane would broadcast the word bomb, many terrorist acts have relied on the threat of a bomb as leverage during attempted hijackings or hostage situations.
It makes sense from the perspective of zero tolerance. Any mention or reference is perceived as a threat regardless of additional actions taken.
Of course not!
That's what they'd name their bluetooth bomb.
Two comments.
If they did and no one took any action people would be asking for their (authority's) blood because they would look really stupid.
If terrorist are intelligent wouldn't they be doing exactly what is not expected of them.
This is modern version of Pascal's wager, a bad game theoretic outcome.
Your example of 150ml liquids has no connection to this security measure nor incident either. That's just a straw man.
That sounds terrible. Please get me the manager.
Planes traditionally have avoided certain kinds of movies and such to avoid creating panic in the cabin. Here every passenger is looking at their phone, and if one guy makes the obvious “there’s a bomb on the plane” joke, the captain/crew could be in a situation.
Crowd management is essential to crew safety and crowd safety.
It's still stupid, but they are imagining the news:
> This guy said "it's probably fine" right before Flight 1337 explodes over the Atlantic.
Now personally I'd actually be willing to take that risk: the odds are so overwhelmingly in favor of it being a dumb prank; you might as well refuse to take a shower for fear of slipping on the soap.
But all it takes is one person up the chain of command to say "this would be bad PR" and you've lost your job.
Because the alternative is a nebulous fog of war where safety decisions are mood, situation, experience, and personality influenced when they shouldn’t be. And when accidents happen we only have difficult to interpret decisions to trace back to. The decisions have to be brainless and black and white.
Could the black and white rules be better? Maybe yes. Then let’s change them carefully.
But I do believe the rules should be black and white, and I personally in this light truly don’t mind I can’t name my Bluetooth device bomb, and I can’t say bomb or joke about having a bomb, no matter how obvious it is that I don’t have one, if that’s the current black and white rules.
Yes
They're threatening to blow up an airliner or actually doing so to hit the news. 911 terrorists had blades, bomb jackets (whether these things are actual doesn't matter, saying you have them is enough), and eventually destroyed the tallest towers in NY and part of Pentagon and erased themselves while committing the crime
The point of terrorism is to be visible, dramatic and cause teror. It's not to get a stealth award for hacking the coupon system at the shop and get away with it
A bomb (real or not) planted by terrorists or hijackers is meant to be eventually known one way or another. It's the point
I agree with you... that's exactly what makes this situation so ludicrous. I'm not sure that an ambiguous, vaguely menacing Bluetooth device name is really going to do the trick.
Indeed it's so dumb that even in the extraordinarily unlikely event that it really was intended as a threat, you can still quite safely ignore it. I rather suspect that if someone wants to make a threat they won't just throw up their hands in despair because nobody bothered checking their Bluetooth pairing settings page. They'll actually communicate their threat to someone in a less ambiguous way.
No one sane would also name a Bluetooth device like that
But yeah, they didn't go for the closest airport either
Yes, this was a huge reaction to something that was almost certainly benign, but "almost certainly" isn't an acceptable risk for 100s of people in an explosive flying cylinder. It truly sucks, there maybe can be better procedures, but "100s of people majorly inconvenienced" is better than "100s of people dead in fireball."
That doesn't seem like a smart precedent to set.
Some industries just have trigger words to avoid.
To your point about a terrorist not naming the phone "bomb," I can foresee exactly that happening. Someone building a remotely triggered explosive device has a considerable incentive to not blow themselves up. Part of the safety behavior in that scenario could indeed include clearly naming the device "BOMB" or similar and then forgetting to rename it before sending it out the door.
I understand protecting people’s sensibilities by avoiding these words. That part makes sense. Same basic politeness as not using curse words in my variable names.
But to turn an entire flight around because of a Bluetooth device name? How does that make any rational sense?
Look at it from a Bayesian perspective. There’s some probability P that there’s a bomb on a random plane. Now, given that a specific plane has a Bluetooth device named “bomb,” what is P for that specific plane?
I argue that P is unchanged. I’d be interested if anyone disagrees with this assessment.
Given the probability is unchanged, why do anything?
I don’t think even the people involved believed there was any danger. They had closer airports they could have diverted to. Going all the way back to Newark makes no sense if you actually think there’s an increased chance there’s a bomb on the plane that might detonate at any time, or a hijacker who might decide to make an attempt, or any other threat.
Going back to the origin airport instead of a closer one is what you do when there’s some mundane problem like the weather being unsuitable at the destination, or a non-critical equipment failure.
So how does this make any rational sense? It doesn’t. It’s performance. Everyone wants to be seen Taking Things Seriously. Nobody is permitted (either explicitly by rules, or implicitly by social expectations) to say “somebody is being a real jerk, but there’s no point in diverting.”
He added a fire emoji to one success message. When testers saw it they were afraid that the customer would think it was a thermal runway problem. Had to do a last-minute revision of the software before shipping the new version.
I was already pretty anti-emoji / personal touch / fun features / easter eggs in professional software. But having to pull a 2-hours overtime to crank out a new release definitely settled me on the side of never again.
edit: To be clear no one actually thought it was a problem, but our QA were very much serious about reducing any potential for confusion when dealing with >1million USD machinery.
That’s not a time and place.
Was this LLM-driven development? I'm so glad that phase is over.
[1] Susan Kare https://kare.com/ at EG8 (2014) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jlb77dDHIXQ&t=273s
"I designed this image [unhappy Macintosh] and this bomb because I was told they would never be seen by anyone! So I thought I could be a little irreverent. But unfortunately, that was not the case."
"The programmers truly thought at the time that they would be deeply hidden. I know that right after the Mac shipped we were in our software area and a call came in fielded through Apple and it was a woman who was using MacWrite, and it had crashed, and she was afraid her computer was going to blow up! So, I felt kinda bad!"
Transcript from http://jimrattray.net/blog/2014/7/1/on-designing-an-iconic-b... .
Similarly there are various things like Aviation English for actual live comms, though they have less specifity, not to that level.
And yes, this is related to being clear and understandable both when communicating something live (you might have to dictate from a manual over the radio!) but also over native language barriers
Feeling very proud. That compsci degree finally paid off
But at the same time in the wake of these type of incidents and seeing how they are responded to, if I were a group that wanted to harm economic interests I'd invest in malware that I'd spend years silently spreading and then at some future date flip to a mode where infected devices detect when they are likely to be in-flight via GPS data and have them randomly change wifi hotspot and bluetooth identifiers to 'bomb' to inflict chaos and economic damage across a system that is apparently incapable of dealing with that.
I don't blame people who are responsible for the lives of others for overreacting in a one-off situation, but such overreaction could be weaponized.
Just like how we are clear and up front about water bottles, knitting needles, bottle openers, and nunchucks being forbidden in carry-on baggage. We clearly sign all that shit, we don't just keep that list secret.
Put up some wall-sized placards listing the words and device and product names (or the kinds of names, we don't need to be pedantic) that you are not supposed to use in airport, so that there is no confusion on the matter. Just because this is obvious and unwritten in your cultural context doesn't mean that international travelers who may not speak the language well are going to be aware of all the unwritten bullshit rules.
There were suddenly a lot of unhappy faces looking at me. I guess some folks are still a bit sensitive about that...
There was a time when their advice for travels to the US of A was to not tell TSA or law enforcement that you had a bomb in your bag, as it wasn't funny anymore and they would not take it as a joke
No one believed that the icon would make the plane crash, but it’s about creating an environment that makes people feel as safe and comfortable as possible. You don’t want people freaking out when they’re locked in a small metal tube in the sky.
Later on my friend got a professional rigging job. One of his first days out he was asked to check an anchor and said it was "Eh, good enough". It was a real record scratch moment where everyone froze and someone asked wtf he just said.
At the same time, some people in the comments under the article are more or less calling for the death penalty for the kid...
The commenters' status as people (I presume here you mean biological humans) seems unlikely to me.
* police/prison/statist notions of justice * auto industry / auto-first infra * both pro- and anti-israel * pro-IP / copyright industrial complex
There are a bunch more. Maybe it's a shift in actual human sentiment, but without evidence, I don't think it makes sense for that to be the first presumption.
Fortunately, we're gonna get this here web-o-trust thing going in the next 10 years or so and not have to doubt who the humans are anymore. Riiight?
Take a step back. You yourself describe it as a joke. Are you really saying that the quality of the joke ("awful") should result in the origin of the joke (a kid, even!) should be banned from a major air carrier for 10 years? Does this really seem like a proportional response?
And this doesn't even begin to consider another possibility: the device was named what it was named in a completely different setting, and the owner just forgot about it. That makes it not even a joke, just forgetfulness.
Was any of this a good idea? No, probably not, but people need to calm down.
I can understand the safety concern - and I think the decision to turn around was ultimately the right call. Especially given that they had called for people turning off BT for some time.
The fact that the device was not turned off suggests to me that the owner did not know they were the cause of this. If they had done this by intent and were set on going through with it even after the turnaround was initiated, they would have also had the sense to drop the device into some other seat or leave it in the lavatory...
If it turns out they did this with full intent, there should be some _appropriate_ consequence
Sure, if evidence is uncovered of the guy say telling his friends "haha, I'm gonna make them turn the plane around", I can get behind the baying for consequences.
We're nowhere near that. There's plenty of non-nefarious ways this could all have come about, and people need to put down their pitchforks.
I don't, and I think it fits what Bruce Schneier called "Cover Your Ass" security (he was referring to the equally stupid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_Mooninite_panic)
It sounds like a fantastic DDoS opportunity, you could shut down an entire nation's aviation just by putting a few tiny bluetooth transmitters in places that air passengers might accidentally pick them up. The attack relies entirely on the overreaction to non-threats by ignorant buffoons in positions of authority.
Personally, I think the airline and its policies should be publicly ridiculed. If we don't punish the airline for doing this, and make unequivocably clear that it did the wrong thing, that its "what ifs" are meaningless and bluetooth/wifi channel names are not a security threat, then this nonsense will just continue.
My wife would have probably freaked out if she saw a wifi network named "bomb" on the plane. So as an airline security officer I'd totally ban this kind of behaviour.
Also if they really thought there the plan was going to explode any moment they would have ditched in the ocean or at least diverted to the nearest airport. They didn’t because there was no danger except to their jobs.
> Though some have questioned why anyone intending to blow up a plane would broadcast the word bomb, many terrorist acts have relied on the threat of a bomb as leverage during attempted hijackings or hostage situations.
For aircrew, not following company SOPs is the express route to getting fired.
If that’s the case the teen likely just owned the device and didn’t knot it was turned on. It’s rather long battery and it’s not obvious if it’s on or not.
Aditionally the order given by the crew (turning off bluetooth) would have done no results as most people would simply assume turning off bluetooth on their smartphone/videogame console/laptop and wouldn't know how to do that on anything else.
The comments ont that link are completely crazy, I read about jail time or even death penalty.
However, I don't understand this part:
> flight attendant told passengers over the PA system that they "must turn off Bluetooth immediately," or else the aircraft would have to turn around.
If there's a BOMB, turning off Bluetooth won't make it much safer. I mean, a turned-off bomb is probably safer than a turned-on bomb, but it's still a bomb.
Pilots: "Phew, BOMB is now turned off. It's absolutely safe to continue flying. Thank you for your cooperation, passengers and terrorist(s)."
<https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/...>
And the relevant CFR: <https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-C...>.
(TIL)
What about non emergency situations such as, say, an objectional (to some) device name on a network?
I can't help but wonder would any of this happened had the device been named "Bomb" in Farsi using unicode.
Il nome della rosa - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Name_of_the_Rose
If the story had been "Bomb detonated on plane after bluetooth name sparks alert" then it would've been more than just objectionable
The Treachery of Images (and names) dates back to 1929; Ceci n'est pas une pipe bomb.
The point of turning Bluetooth off or having to turn around the aircraft was to follow the airline's rules on terrorism, which likely tell them to abort a flight route if there's any symbol that could be interpreted as a bomb.
The captains were risking their jobs if they didn't follow this stupid request. This is a good case for getting common-sense exceptions to checklist-style rules.
And also a new vector for a ransom-attack on the Bluetooth namespace in certain environments via malicious BLE advertising. The worst thing that could have happened here was for someone to take this seriously.
That is also stated clearly in the comments.
Reddit really wants to run with the default speaker name theory, though.
Actually sounds a lot like "that was the default name but now that everyone's making a big deal about it I'm assuming I must have named it that". I wouldn't assume that this "confession" means that reddit's theory is at all incorrect.
Witnesses are terribly inaccurate sources of information, unfortunately.
(Not to say the alternative also couldn't be the case)
So your assumption seems the most likely. I highly doubt a 16 year old kid is firmware hacking a cheap speaker just to rename it for a "joke"
We used to call such devices "boomboxes". And a bomb makes "boom".
Wiktionary also has this meaning listed for bomb: "9. Something highly effective or attractive."
Removed for violating Rule #6: Must be a kid and must be stupid.
Common reasons for this remove include but not limited to:
Teens are not considered kids as its a different kind of stupid.
Changing it would require installing an app that I don't really want to for obvious reasons. Additionally some bluetooth device never really turn down completely and still advertize their bluetooth ID via BLE so the teenager in question may not even have realized he could change anything and the commands given (turn off bluetooth) were completely stupid as it wouldn't change anything if people turned down their smartphone bluetooth.
> This article was updated on Monday, June 1, 2026, to include an official statement from United Airlines and additional context on the incident. It was originally published on Sunday, May 31, 2026.
> …
> It has now been reported by various outlets, including the New York Post [0], that the device responsible for the threatening Bluetooth name was a Fitbit. This is a wearable smartwatch and fitness tracker that comes with Bluetooth capability to sync with other devices, such as phones or computers. The 16-year-old owner and the device were not deemed a threat by authorities.
[0] https://nypost.com/2026/05/31/us-news/united-airlines-flight...
This story is just stupid. If you actually think you have a bomb onboard, you divert to the nearest airport. (And if you think you discovered a bomb accidentally left discoverable, you don’t ask for it to be please turned off.)
The pilots and crew knew they were being idiots. Whether due to power tripping or CYA, who knows, but I’m not surprised this happened on United.
Good point, I was thinking they were over the ocean and that was naturally the closest airport, but it looks like they could have landed in e.g. Nova Scotia in a shorter time period.
That was the most hilarious part for me.
The article says two Bluetooth radios weren’t turned off. Do we know if one of those was “the bomb?”
Wifi SSID? Passenger speech, since those are typically changed by the user. Bluetooth GAP/GATT device name? Manufacturer speech, since those are often not changeable by the user.
That 'other goal' being to cause disruption. Which this did.
Now we all know how to disrupt a flight anonymously. Grudge against <airline>? Fill your boots!
[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/louvre-secur...
One of the theories right after the heist was that the thieves where former security guards. France had just laid of most of the museums security, the alarm triggered just fine, there just wasn't anyone left to respond.
But hey, I don't make bombs. Maybe the bomb-making experts know something I don't.
That, or they're such a small business that they never expected one of their random products to be HN hugged to death.
In all likelihood the site being down right now is actually a PR win.
It reminds me of when RED released a camera called Weapon, and I heard of people putting tape over the name when going through the airport.
By making everyone turn off their Bluetooth, the kid whose speaker had turned on probably couldn't even see the device broadcasting the name. People linked to one by a company made Hellotec but Hama has a similarly named device, and plenty of other speaker manufacturers try to make a pun out of "boombox" by naming their devices "bomb" (iJoy, ZEB-MUSIC, and presumably other such brands).
Maybe if someone asked the passengers if anyone knew about this "bomb" Bluetooth device the kid would've remembered, but in this case I can't blame them. On the other hand, asking passengers if they know something about a bomb is probably the quickest way to cause a panic.
The entire thing seems like a ridiculous overreaction. What kind of terrorist would call their bomb "bomb"? This is "Al Qaeda Free WiFi" all over again.
If it’s a commercial product doing it, I can’t even quantify the levels of facepalm involved.
I know for certain if you change the setting General > About > Name in an iPhone it changes what everyone sees when they look at their list of available Bluetooth devices.
I assume other Bluetooth devices are the same, no? Otherwise how do you distinguish which one of the three million Bluetooth devices within range is your friends Bluetooth speaker you’re trying to connect to?
> I assume other Bluetooth devices are the same, no?
No. The iPhone is allowing you to configure what name it broadcasts. But you cannot just tell another device what to broadcast. That device must have its own mechanism for changing its name.
For example, many Apple wireless peripherals can rename themselves after your user account once you connect them at least once. That has to be a function of the peripheral though, it's not performed by the device you connect it to (past telling the peripheral the new name, of course). Third-party peripherals usually do not have this functionality.
What do you mean by ”usually” here?
I’m certain all the regular name brands, eg JBL Bose Sonos B&O etc enable the device itself to be configured with a user set name via their app. I’m certain because I’ve used them and done so.
As for other brands I own: Jlab, jawbone, pyle, and anker don't seem to have any such functionality that I can see.
So it's far from ubiquitous, sufficiently so that it makes no sense to presume that a bluetooth name is a message from a passenger and can be understood to have any intended meaning.
I don't see why people are hung up on this. Imagine even just 2 or 3 of the same model "JBL SpeakerName" nearby, how would you know whos is whos? Renaming is common.
People buy the speaker, charge it and turn it on, pair, play music, throw the packaging away, that's it. Usually the bluetooth name refer to the brand and model which is much more convenient to know which one you are connecting to than giving it a silly name.
I wouldn't expect most people to know they can do it in the first place and even those who do like me don't bother most of the time.
Your iPhone's rename feature won't change anything for other devices. Maybe Apple is smart enough to sync the renamed device to other Apple devices as well, I don't know about that, but it certainly won't change what the other passengers on your phone see.
You can distinguish Bluetooth devices by their MAC address, that's usually how the rename mapping works.
...I mentally appended an "s" to that, and was momentarily very confused.
Otherwise, I trust many folks in an HN comment section would reminisce on stories from their earlier years, where they'd rename the Bluetooth devices around a densely-populated area to cause mischief.
My phone will show me a different name for a "renamed on phone" Bluetooth device, but all other devices in the area won't.
Which would violate FAA regulations if it was powered on (as it obviously was):
"When portable electronic devices powered by lithium batteries are in checked baggage, they must be completely powered off and protected to prevent unintentional activation or damage."
https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/portable-electronic-devi...
Without tools, its not exactly easy to point-point a Bluetooth signal. Nor are passengers meant to be roaming around the aircraft whilst in flight (i.e to access carry on luggage compartment and turn it off).
"Wife is on the plane. Guy had a speaker named bomb. He just confessed to it. He said he named it forever ago and forgot about it. He’s 16 years old. Wife’s friend is sitting next to him as they are questioning him."
https://www.reddit.com/r/flightradar24/comments/1tsfu8y/emer...
This reminds me of the SNL sketch where TSA employees had no answer for someone bringing two separate bottles of 3.9 ounces onto the plane.
I'm sure Sean Duffy, of Real World and now Sec of Transportation, will fix this.
Nothing really.
I'm guessing that has more to do with theft though than security.
Domestic flights in the US are like busses/trains elsewhere. Most people fly without a checked bag
However I agree that in purely domestic airports I don't see how you'd prevent general public from accessing bags. Except India, wherein you need a booked flight to even enter the airport.
People are routinely prevented from being where they are not supposed to be. Whether you put the baggage pick-up point in a publicly accessible area or on a restricted area is a design choice.
I don't understand this.
Why can't they have a door after the baggage claim that does not permit entry to the baggage claim area?
That's how things work in the UK.
In my local airport, the final part of leaving the arrivals area is the same for both international and domestic flights.
Passport control > Baggage claim (international) > Customs > One-way exit to landside
Baggage claim (domestic) > One-way exit to landside
How do the arrivals exist the terminal
Are you not allowed to have a friend who is picking you up assist with baggage claim?
You arrive, go to baggage reclaim, then into the "public area". You can then exit the terminal, or go check in for another flight or whatever you like. The point is that once you have left the baggage collection area you cannot re-enter it.
>> Are you not allowed to have a friend who is picking you up assist with baggage claim?
exactly. No-one from outside is allowed into the baggage collection hall. But equally, we don't get charged for trolly use. So you don't need help. You stack everything onto a trolly (which are there waiting for you for free.)
I make it a point to hold up the whole line until it is my turn to go through the xray. It gets fun when they mandate a pat down in lieu of the millimeter wave scanner but refuse to have someone available for it.
It’s the only way to honestly say you have kept your bags under watch. If anybody tries to send in my bags without me , I immediately speak up in a loud stern voice, “That is not your bag!”
The only thing this accomplishes is making you the kind of asshole who interferes with other people that are just trying to make their flight on time. You are not highlighting flaws in the security system. You are not taking a principled ethical stance against tyranny. You are just acting like an asshole for the sake of being an asshole and making life just a little bit worse for everyone else around you.
This is not something to brag about. This is something to be ashamed of.
What’s the alternative? Lose track of my stuff or risk it being stolen?
You are being an asshole to prove a point. But I am going to assume that you are an intelligent person, and since you are, you know as well as I do that nobody you are treating this way is in a position to do anything about the situation. Nobody in line is going to empathize with your stand when you are disrupting their travel. You are doing this so you can feel high and mighty, but you know damn well it isn’t behavior that will induce change.
The alternative is to either a) allow others to pass until you witness your bag enter the scanner or b) accept that nobody is going to steal your stuff directly in front of law enforcement officials and just go through the scanner.
Stop acting like an asshole.
How is waiting for my turn to go through the metal detector or be patted down being an asshole? I arrived before the people behind me and I’m following the security procedures of the airport.
It explicitly says to keep your belongings in your position at all times. To keep your bags in view. In fact they ask you if you ever lost sight of your bags.
If people don’t want to wait in line for people following the rules then let them be inconvenienced to the point where they will get the rules changed to speed up the process.
But I’m not going to give in to the stupidity of the security rules and forsake my own belongings to accommodate someone who doesn’t care enough to either come early and deal with the potential ramifications of the rules their elected leaders have chosen for them.
What you are doing is the equivalent of paying some poor cashier in pennies while everyone behind you is forced to wait in order to get revenge for some decision made by executives ten rungs up the food chain.
It is childish and immature. And worse, it biases people against whatever point you’re trying to make in the first place. Please make the conscious choice to be a better person.
> It explicitly says to keep your belongings in your position at all times.
Since you are hell-bent on following all rules to the letter, you could at least commit to the bit and follow your luggage through the X-ray machine.
If you concede that it’s not reasonable to do so, then I think you’re capable of being adult enough to concede that neither is purposefully obstructing a bunch of other travelers for the sake of a pointless exercise to obstruct everyone else so you can maintain eye contact with your luggage.
These rules are not made by CEOs. They’re made by the people the populace has chosen to elect. Either directly or indirectly through inaction.
> It is childish and immature. And worse, it biases people against whatever point you’re trying to make in the first place. Please make the conscious choice to be a better person.
Again, what part of waiting for my turn is childish or immature? If the person in front of me is waiting for her turn I’m not going to complain. That’s the system we’ve arrived at.
> Since you are hell-bent on following all rules to the letter, you could at least commit to the bit and follow your luggage through the X-ray machine.
I think you’re misunderstanding my actions. I don’t hold up the line for no reason. I hold up the line until both me and my bags go through in tandem. Not a moment sooner nor a moment longer.
How? I’ve seen idiots do this. I just go around and ahead of them.
We’d be better off spending TSA’s $8 billion budget on paying people to dig holes and fill them back in.
Those checkpoints are only there to provide a soft target instead of letting it be a plane.
“When ABC News asked the source if the failure rate was 80 percent, the response was, ‘You are in the ballpark.’”
As pilots had been screaming for for years prior to 2001, cockpit doors have been reinforced and locked, and cabin procedures have changed so that those doors are rarely unlocked. [0] This happened shortly after the WTC bombings that totally destroyed the buildings. This means that the only people who can get control of an aircraft are the crew of that aircraft.
The first of the two things that stops "another 9/11" had a one-time monetary cost and was done twenty five years ago. The second was the murder of everyone on board three airliners by hijackers. Prior hijackings were a diversion and an annoying delay. Now that "hijackers will kill you all" is on the table, hijackers will be outnumbered ten or thirty to one and will not succeed. Remember that the plane intended to crash into the Pentagon crashed in a field somewhere because its passengers heard about the ones that hit WTC and -correctly- determined that they had absolutely nothing to lose.
> ...terrorists can blow up a few hundred people [at a checkpoint].
The fact that this doesn't happen indicates that even a jetliner with a flimsy, unlocked cockpit door wouldn't be used as a weapon to kill thousands. Murder -let alone mass murder- is vanishingly rare. By and large, people simply don't want to kill or injure each other... they just want to go about their business.
To support this point, I'd like you to tell me when was the last time you heard about a cell-phone-battery-bomb? You may remember those from back when Israel's military booby trapped the batteries of phones that they believed were going to be delivered to many members of the opposing military... and then set off those bombs all at once. Shorty after the bombings, Bunnie Huang [1] did some thinking and came to the conclusion that not only is it pretty easy to fabricate such remotely-triggerable bombs with like five-figures [2] worth of perfectly ordinary equipment that is entirely legal for anyone to have, if one built such a bomb with the explosive force of a hand grenade it would be [3] undetectable to a TSA CT scanner operator, and -because batteries are sealed- entirely undetectable to explosives swabs.
If The Terrorists Are Constantly Out To Get Us, why haven't we seen these bombs? It has been what, three years or so since those very clever booby traps were distributed to and used against opposing forces? Where are the domestic bangs and booms?
[0] One expects that airlines did not wish to do this because its cost was greater than zero. I wonder how the cost compared to the destruction of three airliners, two skyscrapers, all the deaths and cleanup, and twenty five years (and counting) of security theater.
[1] Huang is a fellow with fairly substantial commercial electronics design and fabrication experience
[2] USD
[3] ...in part because of the variance in battery construction from manufacturer to manufacturer and even from model to model...
Newer xray machines don't require anyone to remove laptops. It's about 50/50 whether I get a new machine lately. Just today at SFO, had to remove laptop but not shoes.
This hit Auckland International badly: it had a lovely open atrium with a garden but the rules forced a forest of partitioning walls since passengers were transferring from smaller airports that couldn't quickly adopt the US rules.
It still feels incongruent with the reality of the situation in my opinion. I can hop on a bus with 200 other people, or on a train with literally 0 security carrying whatever I want in a bag with no staff nearby either.
It used to be much worse though. I think the new machinery has made the difference.
The bus/train is different because they're harder to weaponize. Everything we got was a response to the 9/11 attacks.
Essentially terrorism isn’t about spreading terror, because they are so laughably ineffective at it.
See this excellent gwern article: https://gwern.net/terrorism-is-not-about-terror
Over the years, their failure rate has consistently been 80-95%.
I don’t think you can reasonably call that „generally successful“.
> would result in a prison sentence
That doesn’t seem like a significant deterrent here.
>> "All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies."
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/11/continuing-anxi...
Getting a dozen of their operatives arrested for an idiotic prank that just resulted in a handful of planes being turned around would make them a laughingstock overnight.
I am baffled that we are even having this argument.
Significantly less dedicated supporters are generally used as a funding source, but actual terrorist organizations have also used them for publicity events on the anniversary of attacks.
“There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” Isn’t quite true, but publicity is inherently valuable to organizations dependent on outside donors. The Provos/IRA did similar things (attention grabbing and annoying) not just setting off bombs during the time of troubles.
People flipped out over light brights years after 9/11 and well before the Boston Marathon bombing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_Mooninite_panic
Again, this was before the actual Boston bombing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Marathon_bombing
You’d do something like that.
Why do that when you could simply attack people waiting in the security line? That would actually cause terror and shut down an entire airport for days.
Even then this is an extremely lame and ineffective form of sabotage, compared to the kind of prison sentence you’d be risking.
There are many anecdotal examples out there. More scientifically, they had a horrific detection rate in some audits.
Reminds me of Professor Chaos trying to flood the world by leaving the garden hose on.
Real time insights from not one, but 9, redditors on the flight.
Main post: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/57lugEMhxl
All the redditors on board: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/Fh2KoqG4SY
A passenger with a hilariously illtimed username: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/W86tRI6ZVf
Is there a way for you to post proper direct links?
Can't you just set the old theme in your profile? That's what I do.
> All the redditors on board: https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/1tse6mq/ua_...
> A passenger with a hilariously illtimed username: https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/1tse6mq/ua_...
(Don't have the correct regex on hand right now, as I changed browsers and decided to use Old reddit redirect extension instead of scripting, but it worked in my previous browser)
^(\w*)://www.reddit.com/(?!r/[^/]*/s/|media|gallery|notifications|appeals)(.\*)
$1://old.reddit.com/$2Internal flights in New Zealand don’t need ID. So if you knew you were going to posting your terrible flight experience, you could fly under a fake name.
[1] - https://observer.com/2014/03/park-slope-kiddie-shop-hunts-fo...
When we had the IRA active in the UK everyone would be proud to carry on as normal after any incident, to show that life would go on as normal despite their efforts. This doesn't seem normal.
Does the FBI usually get involved when someone says these words in public in the US?
That being said, I do think any cabin crew pitching a fit over such a hotspot name is absolutely in the wrong. That’s not a threat, that’s personal opinion, and it’s not the hotspot owner’s fault the crew conflates Zionist ideology specifically with Jewish Faith in general like an ignorant fool.
That's certainly not true in many European countries
This suprised me. I’ve hunted for polling and can find plenty showing a plummeting opinion on Israel, but little on internal polling about a Palestinian state.
In the USA, there are many, many firearms. And there's also a small but very vocal cadre of people who would like to disarm the people. In light of this, if a pollster calls and asks for your opinion on guns, and/or inquires if you have any, a common response is to hang up without answering the questions, due to the possibility that the information will be used against them.
The result? They call someone else, and don't count "declined to answer" in their results. So the poll simply is the prevailing opinion of those who wished to answer, and thus is skewed one direction. (BTW, this is why everyone says there are "at least XXX hundred million guns in America; the best they can get is a low estimate)
This happens quite a lot with controversial topics.
I get that they aren’t counted but it’s hard to guess their stance.
Similarly, it’s always interesting to compare polls to electoral results. The correlation seems to be drifting.
And the answer is that the FBI wasn't involved. That was a threat the pilot made, which comes psychologically from the same place as terrorist bomb threats (and also "eat your vegetables or you'll die early" parenting). You want to control someone's behavior so you threaten maximalist retaliation.
Granted though, the FBI didn’t actually get involved. But why let facts get in the way of rage?
Sounds like they should only be made in freedom designated zones a-la Bush-Cheney
I can’t see that it ever has. Making it fractionally less ridiculous.
"Those attending should be aware that showing support for a proscribed organisation is an offence under the Terrorism Act, and we will not hesitate to act where the law is broken," said commander Claire Smart, who is leading policing operations in London this weekend.”
Depending on where the plane was, it might not even have happened in the US.
- Flight 767 returned to airport after seeing a bluetooth device named "BOMB"
- After asking all passengers multiple times to turn off all devices and not getting the "BOMB" to go away, they flight had to return to the airport where officials were waiting to search the plane.
- This was not intentional, but a product that calls it self "BOMB" https://hellottec.com/product/bomb-portable-bluetooth-speake...
- Passengers on the plane commented of the event as it was going on in this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/s/57lugEMhxl
I guess I shouldn't pine, I can just have AI summarize all sources for me, and stop dealing with poor reporting that tries to drag 3 bullet points into multiple pages for the sake of selling ad space.
The hard part would be figuring out the worth of each submission. LLMs might be able to assign a price based on the importance of the fact submitted? and then subscription fee people pay is paid to the contributors. I guess you could also have people rate the inputs and base it on that. (what the readers found important.)
Wikinews closed up and went read-only on May 4, 2026:
https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_closes_Wik...
https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedairlines/comments/1tse6mq/ua_...
So if the person just takes back their bomb threat everything is ok? Or did they think the terrorist labeled their Bluetooth bomb “bomb” and this would disable it?
1. It was unintentional; someone had a bluetooth device called BOMB for some reason that made sense before boarding the plane. They would turn it off.
2. It was intentional; someone wanted to send a warning and chose this channel - they would leave the device on.
If airlines ignored every threat that was “probably not” a real threat, they’d ignore all of them. It’s better to inconvenience a few thousand passengers than it is to kill a few hundred.
But also, just because someone is making what could be perceived as a threat doesn’t mean it won’t escalate, which is why threats are taken seriously even if we don’t know whether something is guaranteed to go wrong. You don’t want a crazy person making bomb threats on a flight even if they don’t have a bomb, because they can inflict other issues while trapped in a metal tube at cruising altitude.
https://www.iata.org/en/iata-repository/pressroom/fact-sheet...
Most security failures happen when people wait to take something seriously until it is “very clear” that something is wrong.
We have the luxury of hindsight while reading this article but listen to the tapes of any security failures and you’ll find it painfully obvious that the most common issue is that people don’t do anything until it’s too late.
"An indication of impending danger or harm."
Not "An expression of an intention to inflict pain, harm, or punishment."
Using the second definition in this context is absolutely bonkers -- a threat actor doesn't have to make a first-person expression of threat to be a threat.
A "security threat" refers to the former -- the situation.
It's also important to note that the situation was not taken seriously just because of the bluetooth device name -- but because it was not turned off even after all of the passengers were instructed to turn off all of their bluetooth devices. They were well aware that people are just stupid sometimes, but didn't take it seriously until it was done in defiance of crew commands.
For example, there are many pieces of equipment that can be broken and they’ll still fly, because it’s not essential or there’s enough redundancy.
Child safety seats are not required even though they’d save lives, because the extra hassle and expense would cause some parents to drive instead, which is much more dangerous, leading to more overall deaths.
Normally the decisions are quite sensible. But the moment any “terrorism” enters the picture it all goes out the window.
a flight attendant told passengers over the PA system that they "must turn off Bluetooth immediately," or else the aircraft would have to turn around.Needless to say, we use the full "Bill of materials" phrase when anyone on the call is at the airport or travelling in general.
I had to call in a BOM threat.
edit: you never go full jim bell
As can be seen in the naming treatment + the comments on that article + comments here. But also can be seen in various other places.
In fact, it has already happened to a degree where we see these lagging(!) indicators pop up. So wherever we currently stand is further than those. To which degree though I couldn't say.
Plan/act accordingly.
It's palpable in the comment sections of many corporate news outlets, as well as on reddit.
Unless there's evidence that this pattern of comments is from real biological humans, I see no reason to presume that it is.
> This article was updated on Monday, June 1, 2026, to include an official statement from United Airlines and additional context on the incident. It was originally published on Sunday, May 31, 2026.
> …
> It has now been reported by various outlets, including the New York Post [0], that the device responsible for the threatening Bluetooth name was a Fitbit. This is a wearable smartwatch and fitness tracker that comes with Bluetooth capability to sync with other devices, such as phones or computers. The 16-year-old owner and the device were not deemed a threat by authorities.
[0] https://nypost.com/2026/05/31/us-news/united-airlines-flight...
Tinfoil hat on.
In the past few years, whenever I hear United on the news its not because they did something “good”.
Also, now anyone who wants to disrupt a flight can switch their WiFi or Bluetooth name to Bomb or “Free Palestine” and the flight gets disrupted? Get out of here.
Just call the police and say you have a bomb planted on flight XYZ and want 100000$ or you'll detonate it.
Reliably bomb detonation is on the roadmap for Bluetooth 8.
A completely-innocent Airtag speaks only bluetooth, and it can be activated from continents away -- as long as any Apple phone is nearby with a shred of Internet access.
My similarly-innocent Samsung phone is programmable (using its built-in Routines function) to perform actions in response to becoming disconnected from any given Bluetooth device.
“a Wi-Fi hotspot named "Free Palestine, F Zionists" prompted the pilot to issue a warning to the cabin, telling the passenger responsible that they had "30 seconds" to remove the name or the FBI would meet the aircraft.”
Of course, someone planning to hijack a flight would probably never try to do so with WiFi ssid’s, not to mention that hardened cockpit doors and passenger attitudes mean that PLO style hijackings are now impossible.
Of course, telling people to turn off the network name (bomb, Palestine or otherwise) and everything will be fine, is a tacit admission that the whole thing is theater.
I understand that the United States is actually a puppet for Israel, although the name on a Bluetooth device isn't really breaking any laws? It's not calling harm to someone, its not a threat. I thought America was the place of free speech?
At some point we need to start asking hard questions about when to charge administrators and staff for creating false alarms.
But the chances are high, they do lose their job if they don't (and/or potentially lose their life as well).
It's that simple.
(regardless of how dumb/overreaction some might view this as)
Don't need to actually get explosives on board, just a bluetooth device. Manage to get 10 planes at once, and you've got a nice bit of chaos on your hands.
Wonder how easy it'd be to reverse pickpocket some fitbits into jackets left laying around before you catch your flight to a 'non-aligned country'.
Could cause lots of havoc with pre-planted speakers, too. Setting off random sirens at maximum volume, telling people to evacuate, etc. I wonder what the security solution would be if people started causing terror via text and sound.
Bomba means Firemen in Malay.
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/fire-engine-photos.com/43...
https://apicms.thestar.com.my/uploads/images/2025/10/10/3563...
OK maybe the bomb blows up when it crosses some longitude, because this is like the movie Speed, and turning around means the plane never cross that longitude..
If you mean another type of duress, naming your device "plshelp-[seat number]" would be a hell lot more effective..
It’s funnier than that. If they had turned off the ‘bomb’ the plane would have just carried on.
The event is bizarre.
Sometimes I feel like I'm from a different planet than some people.
I remember I was not allowed to use a laptop with a CD or DVD attached.
Now you have internet on board.
Calling over the cellular network has been prohibited since time immemorial. What the parent comment is talking about is carriers also prohibiting making calls over airplane-supplied WiFi.
You can't, for example, join a Zoom meeting, or use your phone's built-in WiFi calling ability, on a typical flight nowadays, for better or for worse.
Did someone update fly by wire to run on 2.4Ghz BLE or something? What is even the deal with airplane mode?
Or can the name be retrieved even when they're not broadcasting it?
That is just nutty. Are we now actively participating in the genocide?
I consider posts like this larp/ragebait by default unless there's any actual evidence of that happening (like the flight being aborted in this case).
The US has provided over 310 billion (not inflation adjusted) in military funding to Israel since the Nakba. So I’d consider “participating” a strong understatement.
Wtf?
I can understand a bomb, but this is just free speech.
However, that is also not the actual goal. There is no true threat. No one actually believes that it would be a bomb.
The goal is compliance and to train people to self-police each other.
___
Good new torment nexus idea though. Just litter the plane with BLE antennas and triangulate exactly who it is that is having wrong thoughts.
We'll be seeing it 1-5y from now
Would have been so much simpler.
And the "Free Palestine, F zionists" that made a return to ramp.
I shouldn't be surprised of the security by obscurity of the aviation industry after seeing it for 10+ years, but still am.
Remember the 737 Max guy. And the likes.
Of FFS.
- communicate in English (because apparently even ancient Romans speak perfect English)
- name the device “bomb”
Better to scan baggage for the actual, ya know, bombs. Fine people joking about bombs verbally or written sure.
"Bluetooth speaker name had been set to a "four-letter word, [...] BOMB".
Luckily, it wasn't named "Nuclear Bomb from Cuba" because US Authorities would not have other choice than to nuke Cuba.
Seriously? What those people are doing when they see a fence with "ASS" painted on it? Do they believe that too?
Needless drama.
Perhaps the joke is irresponsible on my behalf potentially causing unnecessary stress for whomever is directly or indirectly scanning my device...
..but on the other hand, if this person can't see the joke, perhaps they shouldn't have access to scanning devices.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts?
Cheers
Now troublemakers have new way to make travelling even more stressful.
Can you name your phone “not a bomb”?
Don't these sites realize how many users they're losing?
No popups when using uBlock Origin and/or uMatrix
scheme=https://
host=simpleflying.com
ip=34.233.113.241
path=/united-airlines-767-returns-newark-bluetooth-name-alert/
{
echo url=$scheme$host$path
echo output=/dev/stdout
} \
|curl --resolve $host:443:$ip -K/dev/stdin \
|sed 's/<img src=[^>]*>//;/user-comment/,$d' \
|grep -o "<p>.*</p>" > 1.htm
firefox ./1.htm
#links -dump 1.htm
It requires an "adblocker" to stop its default behaviour
Alternatively, one needs to disable Javascript, restrict the browser's access to DNS, etc.
When an advertising company releases a "browser" that intentionally allows website operators to cram pages fuil of advertising and tracking is that a coincidence
Is that the only way a browser can be designed
No
How many users realise this
A small number
For example, I'm using a browser that cannot automatically request resources, run Javascript, CSS, etc. where HTTP headers, including cookies, are trivial for the user to create, edit, save and delete. I do not need an "adblocker"
"Don't these sites realise how many users they're losing?"
The number is so small why would they care