Some jerk just diverted a flight by naming his hotspot 'bomb on board'
A Turkish Airlines flight was diverted by a "bomb on board" that turned out to be a false alarm.
The flight from Nairobi to Istanbul made an emergency landing in Khartoum, Sudan, after passengers detected an wifi network titled "bomb on board." Nice going, dude.
The flight resumed after inspectors on the ground found no security risks.
"No irregularities were seen after security procedures were carried out, and passengers were brought back on the plane once boarding restarted," Turkish Airlines told Reuters.
The airline also said that the nefarious wifi network was created, and named, onboard the aircraft.
Mashable has contacted Turkish Airlines for additional details.
All of the flight's 100 passengers were allowed back onto the plane after inspection. The airline has not stated whether it was able to identify the passenger who created the network.
Sadly, this isn't the first time this type of stunt was pulled. In 2014, passengers on a Southwest flight from Seattle to Denver experienced similar stress after a passenger was detained for naming his phone's hotspot "Southwest - Bomb on Board." We can only hope that passengers have learned the lesson that this type of joke is not funny at all.
Topics Cybersecurity
Monica wrote for Mashable's Tech section with a focus on retail, internet of things, and the intersections of technology and social justice. She holds a degree in creative writing from Brown University, and has previously written for Dow Jones Media, the New York Post, Yahoo Finance, and others. In her free time, she can be found attempting to cook Asian food, buying board games, and looking for new hobbies.
