Overview
- United Flight 236 left Newark for Palma de Mallorca on Saturday evening and returned to Newark about three and a half hours later after crew and operations flagged a discoverable Bluetooth name that read 'BOMB'.
- Crew members made repeated announcements ordering passengers to disable Bluetooth and the pilots declared a general emergency, squawking 7700, before reversing course over the Atlantic.
- Port Authority police and federal agents met the aircraft on arrival, the cabin and cargo areas were swept, passengers deplaned with limited belongings, and everyone was rescreened by TSA and Customs and Border Protection.
- Reporting traced the device name to a teenage passenger’s wearable or speaker reported as a Fitbit, the teen had not been publicly charged at the time of coverage, and the FBI has opened an inquiry.
- Aviation and security officials treat visible threat words in wireless network names as credible until checked, and this incident joins a string of recent flights delayed by provocative Wi‑Fi or Bluetooth identifiers that force inspections and delays.