Four hundred British schools were evacuated in March and a United flight from London to San Francisco was quarantined because of a rash of bomb threats which a teenager admitted to making. He was also responsible for a denial of service attack on ProtonMail.

One passenger on United flight 949 shares his perspective on the incident, arriving in San Francisco and being take off the aircraft.

So, here’s what happened: after an uneventful flight from London, we landed at SFO. Right after we landed, we were told that there would be a delay getting to the gate, because of “congestion”.

— GF(¯\_(ツ)_/¯) (@hdevalence) September 9, 2018

After about 45 minutes of waiting on the tarmac, we pulled up to the gate. At this point, we were all instructed to keep our hands in the air (“THIS IS NOT A DRILL”), with no explanation why.

— GF(¯\_(ツ)_/¯) (@hdevalence) September 9, 2018

Looking out the windows of the plane, there was no activity on the ground and no emergency vehicles present.

— GF(¯\_(ツ)_/¯) (@hdevalence) September 9, 2018

Maybe 10 minutes later (I was near the back of the plane), we saw CBP officers armed with M4 rifles moving down the aisles one row at a time, screaming alternately “HANDS UP” and “THIS IS NOT A DRILL”.

— GF(¯\_(ツ)_/¯) (@hdevalence) September 9, 2018

Each row of passengers was instructed to leave the aircraft without bringing any of their belongings or identification. As we left the aircraft, a CBP officer, also armed with an M4, looked for passengers with cellphones and instructed them to leave them in a pile in the jetway.

— GF(¯\_(ツ)_/¯) (@hdevalence) September 9, 2018

As we exited the jetway, another group of CBP officers pulled each passenger aside, performed a pat down search, and then asked us for our name — but did not check the names given against our ID or against a list.

— GF(¯\_(ツ)_/¯) (@hdevalence) September 9, 2018

We then waited in the terminal for a further hour or so. One elderly passenger was collapsing from the shock and had to be taken away in a wheelchair, and a bunch of the kids who had been on the flight were traumatized and sobbing.

— GF(¯\_(ツ)_/¯) (@hdevalence) September 9, 2018

While waiting in the terminal, I heard one of the flight attendants tell another passenger that the flight crew had been informed that something was wrong on landing, but that they had no information.

— GF(¯\_(ツ)_/¯) (@hdevalence) September 9, 2018

Finally, CBP allowed passengers to return to the aircraft in groups of 20 or 30 to retrieve their belongings from the aircraft and their phones from the pile in the jetway (we were told to “be sure it’s yours”).

— GF(¯\_(ツ)_/¯) (@hdevalence) September 9, 2018

He wonders whether the government knew it was a hoax and used it as an excuse for a drill, based on one officer’s attire and another’s stray comment. I don’t see enough evidence here to come to the same conclusion.

As I exited the plane for the second time, I overheard one CBP officer say to another, “good class”.

And, while clearing the plane, one of the officers walked behind the others, and wore a red vest labeled “FIREARMS INSTRUCTOR”. pic.twitter.com/QUbPqapXgO

— GF(¯\_(ツ)_/¯) (@hdevalence) September 9, 2018

He also doesn’t think it adds up that no emergency vehicles responded to a reported bomb and that no IDs were checked. He further finds separating people from their cell phones to be odd, though the government might respond that someone could remote detonate the called-in bomb by phone (why they wouldn’t have done that already, or done so immediately once armed officers stormed the plane, is unclear).

(HT: @joelfreak)