A United Airlines flight bound for Spain from Newark Liberty International Airport turned around midflight Saturday due to a possible security threat.
The flight departed around 6 p.m. for Palma de Mallorca, Spain, but landed back at Newark at 9:37 p.m., according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The airline said there were 190 passengers and 12 crew members on board the Boeing 767 aircraft.
According to air traffic control audio, security came to inspect the aircraft after someone named their Bluetooth device a “certain four-letter word.” A passenger posting on social media said crew members repeatedly asked passengers to turn off all Bluetooth devices, but two devices remained on. The flight turned around after communicating with the airline’s headquarters in Chicago.
Passengers had to evacuate as the aircraft was swept by Port Authority police, and passengers were rescreened by TSA and Customs and Border Patrol before reboarding. The airline declined to provide specifics on the cause of the incident.
Total blackout strikes St. Thomas and St. John
A total blackout hit St. Thomas and St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands early Sunday, the second this weekend as the U.S. territory struggles with increasingly frequent outages.
The Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority said the outages stemmed from the loss of generation at a power plant. The first blackout hit late on Saturday, and despite crews restoring power overnight, another blackout hit hours later.
More than 42,000 people live on St. Thomas, the main island, and nearly 4,000 others live on St. John.