Gotta be careful

Some of you, ah, ‘more mature’ folks may remember cartoons – we used them for commentary in the days before memes. Mistaken understanding was always a good starting point., with frequent usage of someone spotting his friend John at the airport and yelling “Hi Jack”. Calling something “the bomb” worked well too. (Remember Roselyn Sanchez in “Rush Hour II? Don’t care if you liked Bad Bunny or not, SHE is Puerto Rico’s finest and hottest export.) But I digress. Suffice it to say you want to be careful what you say around security folks – who notoriously have NO sense of humor.

Things got exciting on a Wizz Air (yes, that is actually their name) flight from London to Tel Aviv.

On Sunday afternoon, Wizz Air flight W95301 was approaching Israeli airspace after departing from London’s Luton Airport when a passenger reportedly noticed what appeared to be a threatening message on a nearby phone.

Within minutes, concerns were relayed to the crew. Given the destination, those concerns were treated with zero margin for error.

Israeli Air Force fighter jets were scrambled and ordered to intercept the Airbus as it neared Ben Gurion Airport, escorting the plane under close supervision for the final leg of its journey.

According to flight tracking data, the aircraft spent an extended period looping over the eastern Mediterranean, just south of Cyprus, as authorities assessed the situation and coordinated a controlled arrival.

Seems a very Orthodox couple had been using one of their phones as a wifi hotspot, and their presumably bored kid changed the network name to an Arabic word for “terrorist”.

Another passenger’s device detected the hotspot name and interpreted it as a direct threat.

In many parts of the world, such a prank might result in little more than an awkward apology. In Israel, a nation that has spent decades dealing with aviation terrorism, it prompted immediate escalation.

Once the plane landed at Ben Gurion Airport, passengers were held onboard while security teams conducted a thorough sweep. Bomb-sniffing dogs inspected the cabin and luggage, and travelers were questioned as part of standard protocol.

Flights into and out of Israel’s busiest airport were briefly paused, underscoring how seriously even ambiguous signals are treated in Israel.  GH

Bet THAT kid was popular…

This follows closely on a mistaken threat perceived on a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul when someone erroneously thought a passenger made some sort of bomb threats on his phone. It also ended up prosaically with no arrest. It’s a silly old world, and the next time you are on a plane, you might remember that even something you consider private may be seen by someone else in the plane’s close quarters, and misconstrued.

True story- knew someone who, on his first trip to Israel, landed at Tel Aviv in the ’70s when tensions were high. When going through Customs the young sabra checking his bag noticed a wind-up alarm clock. She said “Make it ring!” He though this was taking it to a silly level, and started to protest – when suddenly he was staring into the muzzle of her Uzi as she repeated “I said MAKE IT RING.” He said it was still ringing halfway to his hotel.

Category: Israel