A Turkey-bound flight from Ben Gurion Airport was delayed on Friday and 10 passenger were booted from the flight after travelers received photos of plane crashes and threatening messages on their Apple devices.
“The suspect and another nine travelers were removed from the flight per the request of the airline company and the police,” the IAA (Israel Airports Authority) spokesperson said in a statement. “The passengers were taken in for questioning at Ben Gurion Airport,” the IAA added.
Photos Captioned ‘I Hope We All Die’ in Arabic
One of the photos sent to passengers on the Pegasus Airlines flight was an image of the 2009 Hudson River plane crash in New York, and was captioned, “I hope we all die,” in Arabic, according to images provided by the Israel Airports Authority (IAA).
“People were in a panic when they saw the photos of the crashed plane and were very frightened. We turned to the flight attendants and they took care of it,” Channel 12 quoted a passenger telling police.
The photos were disseminated via Apple’s AirDrop service, which enables file-sharing on devices in close proximity. The flight departed only after passengers’ luggage was checked, the Ynet news site reported.
Similar Incidents Have Taken Place in the Past
This is not the first time such an incident has taken place on flights departing from Israel. In a similar incident in November, a Pegasus Air flight to Turkey from Ben Gurion Airport was delayed after passengers received threatening videos on their cell phones. One passenger was detained in connection to the affair.
In May, a flight was delayed after several passengers found photos of plane crashes had been sent to their cell phones. A number of passengers were later arrested. Flights to Venice and Dubai from Tel Aviv also saw similar incidents.
