A United Airlines flight bound for Spain turned around over the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday night after a suspicious Bluetooth device name triggered a security scare aboard the aircraft, according to passenger accounts and airline officials.<\/p>\n
Flight 236<\/a> departed Newark Liberty International Airport around 6 p.m. Saturday for what was supposed to be an eight-hour journey to Palma de Mallorca. About two hours into the flight, concerns over a Bluetooth device with a suspicious name prompted the aircraft to return to Newark, the Associated Press reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration said the flight, carrying 190 passengers and 12 crew members, landed back in New Jersey at 9:37 p.m. It took off again and eventually landed in Spain hours later than originally planned.<\/p>\n Arkansas native Jordan Moore, who was a passenger on the plane, told Gothamist that she spotted the word \u201cBOMB\u201d on her smartphone\u2019s Bluetooth device options after another passenger alerted the airline\u2019s staff of the device name during takeoff.<\/p>\n Moore said the flight wasn\u2019t immediately stopped, but the captain eventually asked everyone to turn off their Bluetooth devices or the plane would have to turn around. Most passengers obliged, until the suspiciously named device was the only one still listed as a network, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cAt first, I wasn’t necessarily worried at all. I was just like, ‘It’s a Bluetooth network,’\u201d said Moore, who was on the last leg of a three-flight journey to Spain from Little Rock, Ark., with her friend Hayley Harmon. \u201cBut then, the captain came overhead and was like, ‘This is the final warning,’ and they didn’t turn it off. Every single person has every device off and it still said \u2018BOMB.\u2019 That is a little concerning.\u201d<\/p>\n She said dozens of law enforcement officials and emergency vehicles were waiting for the plane once it landed back in Newark.<\/p>\n \u201cFinally, the doors open and all kinds of cops come on board, like, they’re in the front, the back, the middle of the plane, they’re just absolutely everywhere and they, one by one, shuffle us off the plane,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Moore said passengers were asked to leave their bags on the plane and were made to board shuttle buses back to the New Jersey airport.<\/p>\n