alt.hn

5/31/2026 at 12:41:19 PM

United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert

 https://simpleflying.com/united-airlines-767-returns-newark-bluetooth-name-alert/

by Eridanus2

5/31/2026 at 7:10:53 PM

I once consulted on some aviation-related software (not the safety work prominent on my resume), and a company announcement came through, that you must never use a few specific words commonly heard in software development. The two no-no words I recall were "crash" and "bomb". Don't write them in code or documents, don't say them on the phone or videoconf, etc.

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.

by neilv

5/31/2026 at 7:19:45 PM

This is trying to sanewash totally insane levels of risk aversion.

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.

by Eridrus

5/31/2026 at 7:23:29 PM

on the other hand someone could just be that stupid and if so at least you caught it, err on the side of caution basically

by luxuryballs

5/31/2026 at 6:53:58 PM

This is a hilariously stupid reaction to a stupidly hilarious decision made by a speaker manufacturer.

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.

by K0balt

5/31/2026 at 6:33:34 PM

Which bomb would advertise itself as such.. this is something I’d expect in the movie Airplane!, not something to happen in real life.

by Insanity

5/31/2026 at 6:40:29 PM

I completely agree from a logical perspective. However if the plane blew up and it came out that some passengers had posted online that there was a “bomb” blue tooth device and they didn’t turn around… the court of public opinion would be pretty harsh. This was more or less their only choice from a liability perspective.

by diab0lic

5/31/2026 at 7:17:33 PM

> if the plane blew up and it came out that some passengers had posted online that there was a “bomb” blue tooth device and they didn’t turn around

This story is just stupid. If you actually think you have a bomb onboard, you divert to the nearest airport.

by JumpCrisscross

5/31/2026 at 1:54:45 PM

A 16 year boy apparently named his Bluetooth speaker “bomb” and couldn’t turn it off, as it was probably in checked luggage. Woof.

by samgranieri

5/31/2026 at 2:09:06 PM

You can't rename most Bluetooth speakers. "Bomb" was the name the selling brand gave the speaker.

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.

by jeroenhd

5/31/2026 at 6:55:17 PM

When you rename a Bluetooth device from your phone, does that affect the name it broadcasts, or only the label applied in the list of Bluetooth devices in the phone?

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?

by thrownthatway

5/31/2026 at 6:58:54 PM

> 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?

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.

by LoganDark

5/31/2026 at 6:04:29 PM

Even better. The news made it sound like it was an intentional act (at best a prank) by the kid.

If it’s a commercial product doing it, I can’t even quantify the levels of facepalm involved.

by lazide

5/31/2026 at 2:04:52 PM

It was a bomb speaker: https://hellottec.com/product/bomb-portable-bluetooth-speake...

by jychang

5/31/2026 at 6:25:48 PM

Calling their speaker Bomb was asking for trouble and I’m surprised this hasn’t occurred before now.

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 dabinat

5/31/2026 at 6:38:05 PM

They did not calculate with the stupidity of some people. I don't blame them. There are just too many mind blowing ways of stupidity to be able to account for all of them. Also it's not their fault other people decide to ground a plane for no reason.

by basilikum

5/31/2026 at 2:35:14 PM

What kind of company doesn’t want to pay $5 per month for a paid workers plan for their website?

by JLO64

5/31/2026 at 5:59:41 PM

Companies that focus on product and not “investor value” through nice looking working websites

by cryptoegorophy

5/31/2026 at 2:42:15 PM

A lot of non-software businesses probably outsource their websites to some bottom barrel consultant in LCOL countries.

That, or they're such a small business that they never expected one of their random products to be HN hugged to death.

by ValentineC

5/31/2026 at 6:48:11 PM

The kind of company that normally is well within the free tier for years until their product is unexpectedly part of a news cycle.

In all likelihood the site being down right now is actually a PR win.

by dghlsakjg

5/31/2026 at 5:57:37 PM

It probably worked fine until today, and will be back to working fine in a few days.

by jlarocco

5/31/2026 at 2:11:31 PM

Oh man, talk about unfortunate set of circumstances. It looks like a cartoon-like bomb too.

by firesteelrain

5/31/2026 at 2:38:55 PM

I'm assuming that's where the name comes from

by echoangle

5/31/2026 at 2:58:04 PM

Yep, I found the product listing via Google. It says Bomb

by firesteelrain

5/31/2026 at 2:07:09 PM

Website already HN'd into oblivion it seems

by raverbashing

5/31/2026 at 2:10:38 PM

Reddit got there first.

by sikozu

5/31/2026 at 6:06:08 PM

The two are indistinguishable for all intents and purposes.

by xeonmc

5/31/2026 at 4:06:20 PM

When did Airlines start scanning Bluetooth devices?

by thisislife2

5/31/2026 at 5:28:33 PM

Airlines have kept tabs on Bluetooth and WiFi hotspots as early as the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 incidents (2016)

by aobdev

5/31/2026 at 6:02:42 PM

You'd think they would do this before taking off..

by throwawaytea

5/31/2026 at 6:17:06 PM

Perhaps it was turned on by being jostled during take off.

by js2

5/31/2026 at 5:26:14 PM

Some Karen probably reported it

by firesteelrain

5/31/2026 at 6:01:47 PM

What's to prevent terrorists from going through TSA, waiting in the scanning line when everyone is still going through, and then planting a bluetooth device into someone else's bag? I never open my carryon once I have packed it.

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.

by xrd

5/31/2026 at 6:22:46 PM

Nothing. TSA is a joke. At first, the security theater arguably had a legitimate psychological purpose. The airline industry nearly collapsed after 9/11 because people were so scared of filing. But that was a generation ago—the psychological trauma in the aftermath of 9/11 dissipated ago. But we’re still stuck with the TSA because in the meantime it turned into a massive jobs program.

We’d be better off spending TSA’s $8 billion budget on paying people to dig holes and fill them back in.

by rayiner

5/31/2026 at 7:20:35 PM

Even worse, what's to prevent the terrorists from temporarily renaming their Bluetooth bombs to something innocuous just before going through security and only renaming it back when they need to conveniently find them again while pairing?

by AndrewOMartin

5/31/2026 at 6:41:37 PM

People accidentally sneak weapons through TSA all the time.

There are many anecdotal examples out there. More scientifically, they had a horrific detection rate in some audits.

by LPisGood

5/31/2026 at 6:18:22 PM

Seems like an effective DoS attack - ground all planes in the US by sneaking cheap bluetooth speakers into people's luggage with provacative device names

by umvi

5/31/2026 at 7:15:42 PM

Doesn't even need to be a speaker. Just a battery and transmitter.

by ZeWaka

5/31/2026 at 6:23:49 PM

Why would a terrorist want to plant a Bluetooth device on someone else's bag when all it would accomplish is a minor delay of one flight and would result in a prison sentence after security camera review??

by jacobrast

5/31/2026 at 6:41:36 PM

Remember: Kim Jong-Un’s brother was not killed directly by North Korean goons. They hired two women they convinced they were working on a prank show to spray him with the poisons.

You’d do something like that.

by philistine

5/31/2026 at 6:25:52 PM

Why stop at one bag for one flight?

> would result in a prison sentence

That doesn’t seem like a significant deterrent here.

by Retric

5/31/2026 at 6:38:57 PM

This is the type of prank you’d see some idiot do to try and get followers on TikTok, not something a terrorist would bother with.

by stouset

5/31/2026 at 6:50:24 PM

You sure about that?

>> "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...

by Kye

5/31/2026 at 7:02:08 PM

They were bragging that they could provoke this type of response as a result of having flown two planes into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon, killing thousands, and causing fear, panic, and self-sabotaging outsized reactions like pouring trillions into wars that accomplish nothing.

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.

by stouset

5/31/2026 at 6:33:06 PM

If you’re a terrorist, I’m pretty sure you can think of dramatically more consequential things to do than cause a handful of planes to potentially divert. That’s a wildly pointless prank for something that will invariably wind up with you being arrested.

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.

by stouset

5/31/2026 at 6:48:46 PM

A saboteur might want to cause disruption without violence against people, and such cases would still likely be labeled terrorism.

by goda90

5/31/2026 at 7:08:45 PM

Only because we have labeled anything and everything terrorism these days.

Even then this is an extremely lame and ineffective form of sabotage, compared to the kind of prison sentence you’d be risking.

by stouset

5/31/2026 at 6:03:11 PM

The same thing that is stopping them from suicide bombing the super crowded security checkpoint line before ID checks.

Nothing really.

by lazide

5/31/2026 at 6:12:43 PM

Or going into the baggage claim area with a bag containing an explosive device, then acting like they grabbed the wrong bag and putting it back on the carousel, and then leaving.

by bdcravens

5/31/2026 at 6:19:58 PM

As an aside, this is something I've only seen in the US. At least in my country the domestic baggage claim area is not accessible unless from an arriving aircraft.

I'm guessing that has more to do with theft though than security.

by bruce511

5/31/2026 at 6:45:38 PM

Do people collect their bags from the baggage claim area and then immediately reboard an aircraft to exit the terminal?

How do the arrivals exist the terminal

Are you not allowed to have a friend who is picking you up assist with baggage claim?

by thrownthatway

5/31/2026 at 7:03:07 PM

often baggage pickup is on the terminal side of the ‘one way exit’.

by lazide

5/31/2026 at 6:36:51 PM

No, that's because in the US they're handling the international flights separately. It's also the reason why even when you have a layover, you need to clear customs.

Domestic flights in the US are like busses/trains elsewhere. Most people fly without a checked bag

by hvb2

5/31/2026 at 7:16:53 PM

Most of the world handles international flights separately without needing to do that unless it is an international-domestic connection.

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.

by NamTaf

5/31/2026 at 6:46:40 PM

> Domestic flights in the US are like busses/trains elsewhere. Most people fly without a checked bag

That sounds like bullshit to me.

by thrownthatway

5/31/2026 at 7:15:36 PM

Most domestic flights are short duration trips, a week's worth of clothes fit in carry-on suitcase, and the other stuff (laptop etc) can go in a backpack.

In all my domestic flights in the past year they've had to ask people at the gate to volunteer their carry-on suitcase to be checked into the hold because they didn't expect to have enough room in the overhead bins.

I usually volunteer because: it's free, I don't mind waiting at the pickup, and it's slightly more comfortable when getting off the plane.

by hgoel

5/31/2026 at 7:08:19 PM

I don't know if we are the level of "most people" but I'd say we are defintely at a "signficant percentage of ppl". Due to cost of checked luggage the popularity of one bag carry on flying has exploded.

by monkeywork

5/31/2026 at 7:08:56 PM

> That sounds like bullshit to me.

Have you taken a US domestic flight? Everyone wants to bring their massive roll-ons into the cabin, nobody wants to check if they can avoid it.

by objclxt

5/31/2026 at 6:23:59 PM

We need to put a checkpoint before the checkpoint so that never happens!

by mysterydip

5/31/2026 at 6:28:50 PM

In Uganda they make you get out of your car and go through a metal detector before getting to the pre-security security screening at the actual airport... 3-4 layers...

by datadrivenangel

5/31/2026 at 6:05:48 PM

> What's to prevent terrorists from going through TSA, waiting in the scanning line when everyone is still going through, and then planting a bluetooth device into someone else's bag? I never open my carryon once I have packed it.

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!”

by koolba

5/31/2026 at 7:13:31 PM

> make it a point to hold up the whole line until it is my turn to go through the xray

How? I’ve seen idiots do this. I just go around and ahead of them.

by JumpCrisscross

5/31/2026 at 6:45:02 PM

I’m not saying this as an ad hominem and simply to throw insults, but with the hopes that it will encourage you to change your behavior.

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.

by stouset

5/31/2026 at 6:52:17 PM

I pine for the day when news is this:

- 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.

by analogpixel

5/31/2026 at 7:02:58 PM

Oh, I thought how stupid it was to return the flight based on Bluetooth device name, which is just a random string identifying a thing. But I think it's also strongly discouraged to bring devices called bombs on a plane?

by tasuki

5/31/2026 at 7:14:06 PM

The product website has been hugged to death.

by throwaway27727

5/31/2026 at 6:55:15 PM

I'd love that as well - can we not get LLMs to summerize and give us non-click bait versions of these events.

by monkeywork

5/31/2026 at 7:00:18 PM

We can, we just have to pay the $0.05 per articles to do it, and some articles aren't even worth the $0.05.

by analogpixel

5/31/2026 at 7:19:46 PM

I wouldn't mind paying $20/month to https://wikinews.org to help them build an system that indexed news from different sources, threw the links at an LLM summarizer and used as a draft submission to wikinews.

by rglullis

5/31/2026 at 2:04:16 PM

The Reddit thread on this was equal parts amazing and hilarious.

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

by CamelCaseName

5/31/2026 at 2:14:46 PM

Those new obfuscated links prevent old.reddit to work.

Is there a way for you to post proper direct links?

by Insimwytim

5/31/2026 at 5:44:32 PM

You can modify your regex to only match when it's not a shortened url - then the short one will redirect to the real www.reddit.com address, before the redirect matches.

(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)

by bayesianbot

5/31/2026 at 6:59:39 PM

My current regex looks like this:

  ^(\w*)://www.reddit.com/(?!r/[^/]*/s/|media|gallery|notifications|appeals)(.\*)
Mapping to

  $1://old.reddit.com/$2

by f33d5173

5/31/2026 at 2:39:06 PM

You can click on any of the links and replace "www" in the url with "old", then you'll have things more or less like how it used to be.

by bushwart

5/31/2026 at 3:40:08 PM

to do that you have to open the link in new reddit first to expand it, then change it to old reddit. if you use a tool that automatically replaces www.reddit.com with old.reddit.com the shortened links break.

by em-bee

5/31/2026 at 3:46:25 PM

For now!

by tehwebguy

5/31/2026 at 2:40:19 PM

> Those new obfuscated links prevent old.reddit to work.

Can't you just set the old theme in your profile? That's what I do.

by ValentineC

5/31/2026 at 3:41:19 PM

only if you actually log in. not everyone does.

by em-bee

5/31/2026 at 6:04:36 PM

I got permanently banned for the "Christianity is just worshipping a Jewish zombie who is his own father who will save you if you invite him into your head, symbolically drink his blood, and eat his flesh" copypasta, so not everyone can log in :)

by stackghost

5/31/2026 at 6:24:55 PM

I'm one ban away from a permaban thanks to the Navy Seal copypasta

by seattle_spring

5/31/2026 at 6:53:34 PM

[dead]

by aaron695

5/31/2026 at 6:07:45 PM

Very interesting, but a hell of a way to dox yourself for being on the flight manifest.

by koolba

5/31/2026 at 6:15:57 PM

The entities that have access to flight manifests have far easier ways to identify who's behind your account. It's not a threat model worth seriously considering.

by Arainach

5/31/2026 at 6:19:54 PM

Are flight manifests public?

Internal 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.

by lostlogin

5/31/2026 at 1:52:25 PM

People prank others all the time with goofy names [1] (2014) So are we at the point where that will change and devices will have to just assign random sanitized dictionary names? "Connect to my 'apple horse bunny farm'" There are programs that can flood an area with tens of thousands of fake access points (scapy-fakeap). Or thousands of drones for that matter. [2]

[1] - https://observer.com/2014/03/park-slope-kiddie-shop-hunts-fo...

[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8jn_6EmYxE

by Bender

5/31/2026 at 6:01:58 PM

Pranks aside, this becomes remarkably scary when you think about all the ways that a malicious/compromised device could cause chaos.

by btown

5/31/2026 at 6:07:56 PM

I really don't appreciate you posting my unhashed password to the public like that

by dylan604

5/31/2026 at 6:53:23 PM

I hope somebody follows up to ensure that the kid isn't being punished for a completely unpredictable event involving a commercial device.

by RagnarD

5/31/2026 at 1:35:00 PM

> 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.

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?

by mikeocool

5/31/2026 at 2:07:37 PM

I guess they assumed there were two scenarios:

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.

by thih9

5/31/2026 at 2:18:53 PM

3. The level of tech illiteracy combined with airplane security theater is an affront to all thinking people.

by stefan_

5/31/2026 at 5:36:28 PM

4. A normal level of risk aversion in one of the most risk averse industries

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.

by kube-system

5/31/2026 at 7:25:58 PM

No they wouldn't. A fundamental part of a threat is to make it very clear that there's a threat. The reason you threaten is to get some concession, otherwise you wouldn't bother threatening.

by f33d5173

5/31/2026 at 5:55:26 PM

How many threats did actually turn out to be real to date? I couldn't find this being published. But how many threats did happen without any indication (only after the perpetrators tell). I can easily recalled maybe 3-4 incidents. So the issue here is do knowing threats really help?

by Haven880

5/31/2026 at 7:13:20 PM

You don't have your head quite on, they had already taken off!

by stefan_

5/31/2026 at 6:49:02 PM

There was literally no threat.

by basilikum

5/31/2026 at 6:23:51 PM

In the simplest possible terms: this is total bullshit security theatre. At no point has there ever been a bomb or even a bomb threat carried out via usb device names. There is absolutely no reason to even look at the names of Bluetooth devices on a flight.

by Skunkleton

5/31/2026 at 6:05:49 PM

Apparently it wasn’t a threat - a kid had a commercial Bluetooth speaker that names itself as ‘bomb’. No one on the plane did anything intentionally.

by lazide

5/31/2026 at 1:44:45 PM

[flagged]

by root-parent

5/31/2026 at 2:07:28 PM

This is wildly inaccurate to the point of being dangerous advice. The goal during a bomb threat call is generally not to challenge, mock, or provoke the caller into a reaction. It is to keep the caller talking for as long as possible and gather information that could help assess the threat and assist law enforcement or security. There is no reliable rule that says a "real terrorist" will hang up if laughed at or that a hoax caller will stay on the line. People making threats behave in many different ways and simplistic tests like this are not a dependable way to determine whether a threat is real.

by jmisavage

5/31/2026 at 3:11:30 PM

You are supposed to take every threat as real. Which is also why calling in a fake threat is considered a big federal crime to deter clowns.

by PearlRiver

5/31/2026 at 5:22:13 PM

[flagged]

by root-parent

5/31/2026 at 2:15:43 PM

I was talking about this with someone the other day… How many real terrorism threats have been preceded by the terrorist telegraphing their intentions with a phone call beforehand? My prior is that this number is essentially 0 and we should ignore bomb threats as a society.

by jamwil

5/31/2026 at 2:26:33 PM

The IRA (Irish terrorists, for Americans confused at the acronym, or maybe confused at what the IRA did) did occasionally phone warnings and occasionally the information was accurate. Code words were used to authenticate the threat.

by robrain

5/31/2026 at 3:58:22 PM

The PIRA actually do seem to have intended to give accurate warnings when they planted bombs, in Belfast at least. There were inevitably cases when the information was garbled or misunderstood but the use of codewords & the practice of delivering the warnings to a known set of media outlets was at least an attempt to minimise these.

The downside was that the vast majority of warnings were hoaxes - bomb scares were dozens of times more common than actual bombs.

The other main groups - INLA, UVF, and UFF/UDA also got in on the hoax game, but didn't often do real bombs (and didn't always give proper warnings when they did - see the UVF's Dublin & Monaghan bombings for a particularly grim example).

But real bombs were just common enough that the hoaxes from whatever source had to be taken seriously and so they caused huge amounts of disruption, probably more than anything that actually exploded.

by roryirvine

5/31/2026 at 2:30:57 PM

The Weather Underground often warned the targets of their bombings via phone call. (I guess their goal was to attack gov't institutions and make a political statement, not to kill lots of people.) This was in the late '60s-'70s.

by hoppyhoppy2

5/31/2026 at 2:34:15 PM

Logically that probably makes sense, but it would require everyone in the chain of command agreeing to that policy, and there’s no way that would ever happen from a liability standpoint.

by SteveNuts

5/31/2026 at 2:30:38 PM

The IRA bombs in civilian areas in the uk almost always had phone calls that preceded the bombs going off.

by rndmio

5/31/2026 at 7:08:35 PM

This sort of reporting only helps the terrorists. They'll now name their bluetooth trigged bombs "Non Explosive Device".

by nutjob2

5/31/2026 at 6:06:24 PM

Andddd now everyone knows that an arbitrary text string in a device hostname is enough to ground a flight.

by richstokes

5/31/2026 at 6:24:14 PM

The other incident mentioned is worse I think. It wasn’t a potential threat, it was stating an opinion.

“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.”

by lostlogin

5/31/2026 at 6:54:24 PM

Given that the Palestinian Liberation Organization has an actual history of multiple hijackings, this makes a slight amount of sense.

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.

by dghlsakjg

5/31/2026 at 6:16:02 PM

To be honest calling the police and saying you have a bomb planted on flight XYZ and want 100000$ or you'll detonate it, is probably also enough.

by basilikum

5/31/2026 at 6:22:53 PM

But bombs apparently use bluetooth now, so he can't detonate it from more than a few metres away...

by bluescrn

5/31/2026 at 6:27:07 PM

> he can't detonate it from more than a few metres away...

Reliably bomb detonation is on the roadmap for Bluetooth 8.

by lostlogin

5/31/2026 at 5:28:49 PM

This feels like one of those rare stories where everyone involved probably overreacted a little, but you can also understand why nobody wanted to be the person who ignored it.

These phones should have limits of how much you can use the tech...

by IamCompliant

5/31/2026 at 6:17:44 PM

> These phones should have limits of how much you can use the tech...

What do you mean?

by basilikum

5/31/2026 at 7:18:17 PM

> 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.

Wtf?

I can understand a bomb, but this is just free speech.

by epolanski

5/31/2026 at 2:04:56 PM

Oh gosh, sure, terrorists always name their devices "bomb" in the open.

by wartywhoa23

5/31/2026 at 2:31:22 PM

What a usability nightmare this site is: 3-4 popups before I could even read the title. No thank you. And this is with an adblocker turned on.

Don't these sites realize how many users they're losing?

by puttycat

5/31/2026 at 5:27:42 PM

Why would it land in New York instead of St John?

by opengrass

5/31/2026 at 5:50:14 PM

Better food and theater.

by dboreham

5/31/2026 at 6:09:41 PM

Presumably the logistics of being back at a major hub

by anonymars

5/31/2026 at 2:12:21 PM

IM THE BOMB AND ABOUT TO BLOW UPPPPPPPP

by sammy2255

5/31/2026 at 6:22:47 PM

This is like the Adam Sandler movie where he says bomb on an airplane. It's an overreaction, is it not? A terrorist is not going to call their bomb's bluetooth trigger bomb. Even if they are, are you telling me we have no idea whether there is a bomb in luggage or not?

by justinhj

5/31/2026 at 2:39:04 PM

Someone needs to explain to me how the name of a Bluetooth device has any bearing on anything. Isn’t the real security not letting a bomb on the plane?

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.

by outside1234

5/31/2026 at 5:53:18 PM

There is nothing new in that. It's pretty common that people get drunk at the airport or on the plane and make jokes about bombs or something. Then the place is evacuated and flights are disrupted. The culprits get arrested and probably have to pay a fine and maybe some compensation to the affected airlines, but they usually don't get any prison time.

by jltsiren

5/31/2026 at 5:54:27 PM

There are simpler ways to disrupt a flight.

by NegativeK

5/31/2026 at 6:28:57 PM

Are there? Setting a device name might be the lowest effort thing I can think of.

by lostlogin

5/31/2026 at 6:53:34 PM

Requires you to be on the plane.

Just call the police and say you have a bomb planted on flight XYZ and want 100000$ or you'll detonate it.

by basilikum

5/31/2026 at 6:06:28 PM

Just wait until you hear what a bad joke while waiting in the TSA line can do to you day.

by lazide

5/31/2026 at 6:14:45 PM

I brought some bathbombs on a trip as part of a thank you gift. My bag got pulled aside for additional screening, and I had to think for a second on what to call them when the TSA person asked me what they were.

by dylan604

5/31/2026 at 1:34:13 PM

> "Free Palestine, F Zionists"

Does the FBI usually get involved when someone says these words in public in the US?

by alfiedotwtf

5/31/2026 at 1:50:37 PM

Not directly, no, but they’ll build a file for what they consider extremist views. Just look back to the Civil Rights Movement era for the list of things people said that would get them an FBI file - we have a long and storied history of surveilling anyone and everyone who says things that go against what political power desires.

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.

by stego-tech

5/31/2026 at 4:57:07 PM

“Free Palestine” isn’t exactly fringe. In fact, outside America and Israel, I’d bet it’s the default stance

by alfiedotwtf

5/31/2026 at 5:44:19 PM

Something can be a “virtuous” statement while still being an expression of hatred.

Someone shouting “free Palestine” at random Jews in Europe, for example, is just being an antisemite.

by throw3580494

5/31/2026 at 6:20:19 PM

Why? This makes no logical sense.

re the second response: Original commenter did not specify exlusivity to jews. So that's my assumption.

by megous

5/31/2026 at 6:27:48 PM

Try and think of other groups of people and the “legitimate” statements that can be said to them in a hateful way.

You may genuinely believe that it’s wrong to blow up planes, but going up to a random Muslim in the airport and telling them “please don’t blow yourself up” is Islamophobic.

Do you agree with that?

by throw3580494

5/31/2026 at 6:56:40 PM

Either the person you're telling your opinion about Palestine agrees with you or not. Expressing an opinion about some situation publicly is not hate. And who you're telling your opinion to is irrelevant.

You're not telling them to not attack Palestine by shouting "Free Palestine", or anything similar, only that you believe that Palestine should be free, so your comparison is not valid, because it does not contain any hidden assumptions.

They might as well agree with you. They can correctly respond by shouting Free Palestine back at you.

by megous

5/31/2026 at 7:02:24 PM

I’m Jewish and living in North America. I have no ability to affect Israeli policy, nor is my heritage an endorsement of it. If someone was yelling at me about Palestine because I am Jewish, I would be pretty offended, even though I probably agree with them.

It’s the same as running up to a Muslim and screaming “stop terrorism”. Or running up to a black person and yelling “stop gang violence”.

The action of yelling at a random person because they belong to an ethnic group that is the dominant party that is doing a bad thing in a different part of the world means you are inherently judging them for their race/ethnicity. It is a pretty good definition of racism.

If you are yelling free Palestine at everyone, fine. If you are targeting your message at people because of their race, that’s just racism. The targeting is the issue, not the message.

by dghlsakjg

5/31/2026 at 5:37:29 PM

> “Free Palestine” isn’t exactly fringe. In fact, outside America and Israel, I’d bet it’s the default stance

That's certainly not true in many European countries

by chimeracoder

5/31/2026 at 6:41:59 PM

> 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.

by lostlogin

5/31/2026 at 6:33:20 PM

> when someone says these words in public in the US?

Depending on where the plane was, it might not even have happened in the US.

by lostlogin

5/31/2026 at 2:16:39 PM

In the UK you can get arrested for saying less.

by tjpnz

5/31/2026 at 6:43:50 PM

Can you? ‘I support Palestinian Action’ is all I can think of and it’s the same length.

by lostlogin

5/31/2026 at 2:01:04 PM

Not sure why this is downvoted. This was an example from the same article.

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.

by ajross

5/31/2026 at 2:11:14 PM

An aircraft is not really public. The Captain and FO have a tremendous amount of power they can wield to make sure a flight passes without incident. A plane is not the place to make statements.

Granted though, the FBI didn’t actually get involved. But why let facts get in the way of rage?

by hluska

5/31/2026 at 4:53:59 PM

> A plane is not the place to make statements

Sounds like they should only be made in freedom designated zones a-la Bush-Cheney

by alfiedotwtf

5/31/2026 at 1:48:02 PM

The government of Israel has more freedom of speech and control over the US than voting citizens do.

by esseph

5/31/2026 at 6:55:49 PM

Give citizens time, one of them might persuade Trump to attack another country, levelling the score.

Greenland isn’t out the danger zone yet.

by lostlogin

5/31/2026 at 2:08:23 PM

Imagine getting your jimmies this rustled over expressing antipathy for a genocidal regime, and sympathy for an oppressed people.

by isoprophlex

5/31/2026 at 2:46:23 PM

Cognitive dissonance can explain a lot. If you don’t think the current regime is genocidal (whatever that even means) then you might get very concerned that anybody who says it is genocidal is a dangerous lunatic or terrorist sympathizer. Even saying something obviously truthful like “there are good people on both sides” becomes a threatening provocation. Hate is a system.

by sbayg

5/31/2026 at 6:48:07 PM

It means this: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/31/satellite-imagery-s...

Israelis, particularly Israeli jews for some reason, are very hateful. (half of them advocate killing every inhabitant of a conquered city https://archive.ph/nNzq4 - and they absolutely destroyed entire 100k+ strong cities in the last few years and killed everyone who refused to flee, so it's not an idle threat) They bombed many cafes and restaurants in the last few years, full of people.

On average they seem like complete violent nutjobs. Like every second Israeli you'll meet is likely to be one of those that if they decide they want your city, they'd just advocate killing you and your entire family if you resist. Yet they can still fly freely in the world?! People are too tolerant if anything. :)

by megous

5/31/2026 at 6:59:01 PM

It’s not just the beating and killing of people. That seems bad enough, but the recent episode of ‘settlers’ torturing a dog is horrific.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/22/world/middleeast/settler-...

by lostlogin

5/31/2026 at 7:10:53 PM

Yeah, I've seen way too much violence against animals from both Israeli state, and public. But that's to be expected I guess, from a state that does not even adequately punish their soldiers when they execute children or parents in front of children, and whose commanders think squid games is an inspiration, or whatever.

by megous

5/31/2026 at 2:01:12 PM

The "Palestinian" movement _invented_ airplane hijacking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings_an...

So yes, the FBI will get involved in this case. In this context it is something to worry about.

by fortran77

5/31/2026 at 5:33:22 PM

Biased much? You could have used: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_hijacking

That says:

"Airplane hijackings have occurred since the early days of flight. ...Pre-1929, 1929–1957, 1958–1979, 1980–2000, and 2001–present."

"...Between 1958 and 1967, there were approximately 40 hijackings worldwide..According to the FAA, in the 1960s, there were 100 attempts of hijackings involving U.S. aircraft: 77 successful and 23 unsuccessful....

"..In a five-year period (1968–1972) the world experienced 326 hijack attempts, or one every 5.6 days.."

And your conclusion is "Palestinian" movement (that you wrote between quotes)...invented airplane hijacking?

by root-parent

5/31/2026 at 6:49:30 PM

> In this context it is something to worry about.

Would you really be worried if someone said or wrote that near you in any context?

Short of them holding a weapon, this is baffling.

HN is generally absolutist when it comes to ‘freedom of speech’, and I don’t agree with having no limits, but in this instance it’s some overly sensitive overreaching BS.

by lostlogin

5/31/2026 at 2:44:38 PM

Which is kind of ironic, considering modern terrorism was basically an invention of the Zionist movement in Palestine.

by elzbardico

5/31/2026 at 7:07:22 PM

It's also completely false because they cited only Palestine-related hijackings, and not the parent article that goes back far further and proves they're lying.

by basilgohar

5/31/2026 at 2:06:18 PM

And when was the last time such a hijacking took place outside of so-called “Israel”?

by Cyph0n

5/31/2026 at 2:13:48 PM

> so-called “Israel”

What’s with the ‘so-called’? That’s what the country is called. Israel. But I’m not sure that you’re aware but there was a really big one 25 years ago this coming September. Maybe you heard of it?

by hluska

5/31/2026 at 3:28:13 PM

u/fortran77 used the phrase so-called “Palestinian” movement (slightly edited since), so I simply responded with the same rhetoric :)

Of course, I somehow doubt that you would have a similarly strong reaction when Palestine is erased.

by Cyph0n

5/31/2026 at 5:43:23 PM

No evidence of that, of course, but your comment stands.

by msla

5/31/2026 at 2:49:19 PM

No that was because they hate our freedom, not because of decades of occupation and war all over the middle east funded by US taxpayer dollars.

by kennywinker

5/31/2026 at 6:53:50 PM

I’d like to see a rebuttal to this comment.

Is the US now safer after the Iran attacks?

by lostlogin

5/31/2026 at 3:41:41 PM

Even if you discount the possibility of an intentional threat as silly, this could have been a warning from someone under duress. Turning around was the right move.

by eudamoniac

5/31/2026 at 6:01:55 PM

How does that scenario work? Someone's under duress because presumably there's a terrorist on board. He lets the crew know there's a bomb onboard. The plane turns around, and the terrorist... lets the plane land safely?

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..

by netsharc

5/31/2026 at 6:31:13 PM

> How does that scenario work?

It’s funnier than that. If they had turned off the ‘bomb’ the plane would have just carried on.

The event is bizarre.

by lostlogin

5/31/2026 at 2:25:46 PM

... I can't believe what I am reading...

"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?

by piokoch

5/31/2026 at 2:11:15 PM

[dead]

by falcons-edge