A United Airlines Boeing 767 departed from Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey at around 6 p.m. on May 30, carrying 190 passengers and 12 crew members en route to Palma, Mallorca, Spain. After about three hours of flight, crew members discovered that two passengers had not turned off their Bluetooth devices as required, and one of them was named with a threatening “four-letter word” consisting of special letters. After repeated announcements went unheeded, the crew contacted United Airlines headquarters in Chicago and decided to turn back at 9:37 p.m. that evening. United Airlines did not provide further details on the specifics.
After returning to Newark, passengers disembarked with only their passports and phones, underwent re-screening by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and then departed in the early hours of May 31 on a replacement flight operated by a new crew, arriving in Palma that afternoon. This incident is a microcosm of United Airlines’ safety woes in May: On May 29, a domestic flight was forced to divert due to unruly passenger behavior; earlier in the month, a passenger received a 30-second ultimatum from the pilot for an inappropriate mobile hotspot name; and in the same month, another aircraft hit a nearby highway light pole and a moving trailer while landing in Newark, injuring the trailer driver slightly.