How Apple’s AirDrop And A Toy Gun Caused A ‘Threat On Board’ A United Flight Last Week
Last Thursday, a United Airlines flight was prepping to leave the gate at San Francisco International Airport when several passengers inexplicably received a photo of a gun via their smartphones.
After those passengers notified flight attendants, the pilot announced a “threat on board,” reports SF Gate. That initiated a three-hour delay, while officials evacuated the plane, rescreened all the passengers and searched the aircraft.
Christopher Beale, an independent radio host based in San Francisco, recounted on Twitter that his mother was on the plane that was supposed to be on its way to Orlando. “My Mom’s flight out of SFO was held on the tarmac because someone was airdropping inappropriate pictures to several passengers,” Beale tweeted. “Why are people like this!?”
The culprit was a teen passenger who had disseminated an image of an Airsoft gun, a replica firearm that closely resembles a traditional firearm but shoots nonlethal, plastic pellets. Police have long warned that Airsoft guns are so realistic that they can be easily mistaken for real guns. In 2015, police in Ohio shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice after mistaking his replica gun for a real firearm.
