Jewish teen's prayer triggers bomb scare on plane

Tefillin [pictured above] while powerful, have no destructive powers.
A plane crew mistakened them for a bomb.

Tefillin causes bomb scare on US flight

A teenage airplane passenger using a Jewish prayer instrument caused a misunderstanding that led the captain to divert the Kentucky-bound plane to Philadelphia and prompted a visit from a bomb squad.

A 17-year-old boy on US Airways Express Flight 3079 traveling from New York to Louisville was using tefillin, a set of black boxes attached to leather straps and containing biblical passages. When used in prayer, one box is strapped to the arm while the other box is placed on the head.

"It's something that the average person is not going to see very often, if ever," FBI spokesman J.J. Klaver said.

The teen explained the ritual after being questioned by crew members, but the captain decided to land in Philadelphia anyway, authorities said.

The teen was traveling with his 16-year-old sister. Klaver said the teen and his sister were never in custody, and have been cleared to continue their travels.

Passengers on 50-seat jet were rebooked on other flights.
[Jerusalem Post]


A Flight Is Diverted by a Prayer -James Barron

A 17-year-old passenger in a whitish sweater took out something he had carried onboard, and strapped it onto his wrist and his head.

To some people in New York, that is a relatively common sight: an observant Jew beginning the ritual of morning prayer. But to at least one person on US Airways Express Flight 3079 on Thursday — the flight attendant — it looked ominous, as if the young man were wrapping himself in cables or wires.

The flight attendant asked what he was doing. The young man’s response was straightforward, Lieutenant Vanore said: “He gave the explanation he was in prayer.”

But the flight attendant was concerned about the tefillin. She called the cockpit and “described it as best as she’d seen it,” Lieutenant Vanore said, “and there was an item wrapped around his head, straps or wires.” “The straps did appear to be cables or wires to her,” he said. “To the naked eye looking at it, it looked like that. She said it had wires running from it and going up to his fingers."

In less than 30 minutes it was on the ground, police officers were swarming through the passenger cabin, and the Transportation Security Administration was using terms like “disruptive passenger” and “suspicious passenger” to describe the boy.

The boy’s grandmother, Frances Winchell, said her grandson and granddaughter were handcuffed for a few minutes.
[New York Times]
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