An American Airlines flight was forced to turn around after a passenger noticed an alarming message on someone's phone.
If you're anything like me, then you have a habit of reading over other people's shoulders while they're texting.
I know it's wrong, but most of the time I do it without realizing.
Well, one person on a flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Dallas did exactly the same and got quite the surprise.
The drama unfolded early Thursday morning, when the unidentified passenger peeked over at another traveler’s phone and spotted the message “RIP,” USA Today reported.
Convinced it was a coded threat to the entire flight, the alarmed passenger quickly told a flight attendant, who then alerted the cockpit and triggered emergency safety protocols, local outlet Primera Hora reported, citing authorities.
The plane was forced to land in Isla Verde just 30 minutes after takeoff, delaying hundreds of travelers while authorities rushed to investigate.
But the supposed “threat” turned out to be nothing more than a grieving passenger receiving condolences.
Puerto Rican authorities later questioned the passenger who received the message, who explained that they were flying to Dallas because a relative had died the day before.
The US territory’s Office of Explosive and Public Safety confirmed there was no legitimate threat, and the American Airlines flight was cleared to re-depart from Puerto Rico, finally landing safely in Texas on Friday.
You'd be quite annoyed if you were on that flight, wouldn't you?
In another bizarre travel story that you might have seen, one Norwegian traveler was denied entry to the US allegedly because he had a meme of JD Vance on his phone.
Mads Mikkelsen, 21, told Norwegian outlet Nordlys that he landed at Newark on June 11 ready to visit friends in New York and later travel to Austin, Texas.
Instead, he says US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detained him, confiscated his phone, and flagged two images in his camera roll: a meme mocking JD Vance with an exaggerated bald head and a photo of a wooden pipe he had made.
“They asked questions about drug trafficking, terrorist plots, and right-wing extremism totally without reason,” he told Nordlys. “I was subjected to abuse of power and harassment.”
Mikkelsen claims he was threatened with a $5,000 fine or five years in prison if he didn’t unlock his phone, per News.com.au, before being placed in a holding cell and subjected to fingerprinting and a blood sample collection.
Once unlocked, agents allegedly zeroed in on the JD Vance meme, which had automatically saved from a messaging app, despite Mikkelsen explaining it was “a harmless joke.”
“It felt like I was a terrorist suspect where I was sitting,” he said.
He was flown back to Norway that same day.
After the story went viral online, with critics calling the situation “authoritarian,” CBP issued a blunt statement.
“Fact Check: FALSE,” the agency posted on X (formerly Twitter). “Mads Mikkelsen was not denied entry for any memes or political reasons, it was for his admitted drug use.”