New York, January 22: An Orthodox Jew’s prayer rituals, including wearing a sacred box on his head, triggered a bomb scare, aboard a US passenger plane on a domestic flight.
“It appears that it was a misunderstanding with a religious passenger wearing a religious item and praying loudly,” a security source told.
“The flight crew deemed, I guess, his actions and his item he was using to be suspicious and diverted the airplane.”
The Chautauqua Airlines jet bound from New York to Louisville, Kentucky, diverted to Philadelphia International Airport after what authorities described as a security incident caused by a “disruptive passenger.”
Greg Soule, spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), said the passenger was questioned by law enforcement officers on the ground and that the plane was searched.
“There’s an individual in custody,” an FBI spokesman in Philadelphia told.
“There was a security concern but I can’t comment on that.”
The false alert reflected jitters throughout the US air travel network since an alleged attempt by a Nigerian to set off a bomb on a Northwest Airlines plane bound from Amsterdam to Detroit on December 25.
Newark International Airport was paralyzed earlier this month when a man made an unauthorized entry into a secure zone just to give a departing passenger a last kiss, it turned out.
Another security scare occurred at a California airport when Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents found suspicious liquids on a passenger.
The substance was later found to be honey.
Misunderstanding
Initial reports on CBS 3 television referred to a male passenger who’d strapped a wire from his fingers to his head.
The security source told AFP that the passenger in question was in fact wearing a phylactery, the box containing Bible verses that Orthodox Jews strap around their head as part of their rituals.
He was “praying loudly and using this device,” the source said.
“What we’re hearing is there was a language barrier.”
The misunderstanding echoed a string of embarrassing incidents involving Muslims or people of Middle Eastern appearance over recent years.
In 2006, an architect was prevented by security staff from boarding a JetBlue flight from New York to California while wearing a T-shirt with Arabic writing on the front.
Raed Jarrar, who is of Iraqi descent, said he was told by one official that “going to an airport with a T-shirt in Arabic script is like going to a bank and wearing a T-shirt that says ‘I’m a robber.'”
The T-shirt actually said in Arabic: “We will not be silent,” an anti-war slogan in the Middle East.
-Agencies