Planning a flight? Don’t call your Bluetooth device the ‘B’ word
Getting a new Bluetooth speaker or a pair of headphones? Be careful what you name the devices if you plan to take them along on commercial airlines. What you think is cute or funny could lead to flight delays or reroutes.
This is no joke. A United Airlines flight to Spain had to make a U-turn Saturday night after a device with a suspicious Bluetooth name was discovered, and it wasn’t the first time such an incident occurred.
Turns out, you really can’t say bomb on an airplane.
Spain flight turns around
Passengers departed from Newark Liberty International on Saturday, headed for Palma de Mallorca in Spain. But, more than four hours into the flight, the plane turned around and headed back to Newark.
In a statement to NPR, United Airlines said it called back the flight “to address a potential security concern.” But posts on social media shed a little more light on the matter.
People on the flight said the crew made announcements to turn off Bluetooth devices. One post, according to NPR, said the crew made lots of comments like “this little joke is ruining it for everyone.”
Another passenger wrote on TikTok that there was an active Bluetooth network titled “BOMB.” Other passengers say the device was a teenager’s speaker.
Air traffic control correspondence confirms an incident like that occurred, with one voice saying there was a Bluetooth speaker on board “and they named it a certain four-letter word.”
The recording goes on to say that security would have to inspect the entire aircraft, including the cargo area, and passengers would have to evacuate.
The flight eventually took off again, and landed in Spain more than nine hours late.
Similar incidents in recent years
Saturday’s incident was not the first time a Bluetooth or wifi name messed with a flight path or departure.
In February 2025, an American Airlines flight was delayed after its crew alerted authorities about a WiFi hotspot with a name involving the word bomb.
In that instance, the flight was scheduled to depart from Austin, Texas, for Charlotte, North Carolina. However, one passenger noted a suspicious WiFi name and notified a flight attendant. The attendant then informed the pilot, who returned the plane to its gate before it could take off.
Turns out, a passenger had named a WiFi hotspot “There is a bomb on the flight.”
About a year later, in January of this year, a Turkish Airlines flight made an emergency landing in Barcelona after a passenger “established an in-flight internet access point and set the network name to include a bomb threat,” a spokesperson for Turkish Airlines told The Associated Press.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
