United Airlines flight to Spain gets turned around because someone had a Bluetooth device on that they'd named "BOMB"

[Archaic]

https://www.npr.org/2026/05/31/nx-s1-5841913/united-airlines-flight-diversion-bluetooth

A United Airlines flight from Newark, N.J., to Palma de Mallorca, Spain, pulled a U-turn late Saturday over what appears to have been a suspiciously named Bluetooth device on board.

Flight tracking data shows that the flight, which should have landed in Spain after a nearly eight-hour flight, instead returned to Newark after 4 hours and 24 minutes in the air.
...
"There is an active Bluetooth network labeled 'BOMB,' " one self-identified passenger wrote on TikTok. (She shared a video of herself drinking sangria, geotagged to Palma de Mallorca, after the flight finally arrived.) Another Reddit post of someone who claimed to be the spouse of a passenger similarly reported that the word in question was "bomb" and that the device was a teenager's speaker.

As an Australian, I've always been paranoid over a similar sort of thing happening on any domestic flight I'd been on ("Check the BOM", as in Bureau of Meteorology, is a fairly common thing someone might say down under), but it's kind of insane to think this could happen on an international flight. You have to wonder why it didn't cause them to turn back sooner though. I've seen suggestions it was in their checked luggage, so possibly it got moved around and turned on during flight.

 

[Meowth's Number One Fan]

JOISEY MENTIONED LETS GOOOO. Also big fan of the guy who was apparently on the flight and sharing info while his reddit username was "Skyjacker." Very amusing lmao