Man’s Vintage Camera Mistaken for Bomb, Causes Emergency Landing

https://petapixel.com/2021/10/11/mans-vintage-camera-mistaken-for-bomb-causes-emergency-landing/

by martin_a • 5 years ago

45 15 5 years ago

wrp• 5 years ago

What was the camera?

nanis3• 5 years ago

There doesn't seem to be any more information available anywhere else. Just based on what I consider to be a vintage camera, I suspect someone fixated on the owner of the camera for other reasons first before interpreting and reporting the images and the actual camera itself as a bomb.

The fact that the crew went with it instead of trying to discreetly observe what the person was fiddling with is annoying as well ... both from the perspective of the person unnecessarily detained and other people whose lives were disrupted.

Pictured left: The woman and her kids were seated across from her spouse when she noticed another passenger next to her husband watching videos and pictures of vintage cameras

So, this person is sitting next to her husband, fiddling with a bomb, in her imagination, but her husband is completely unaware? Curious. And the flight crew goes along? Weird. Their behinds are covered since they have a "valid" excuse.

Update: Here is similar take[2] published an hour before I was making my comment:

This incident raises so many questions for me. Firstly why didn’t the woman engage the man in conversation first, he may have been more than happy to show her how old cameras worked. Did the flight attendants even question the man and try to ascertain what the object was? According to Quartz airline personnel are trained to deal with such situations and make reasoned assessments when passengers report suspicious behaviour.
...
Another baffling part of the story is that unless the man was somehow able to secretly hide the cameras inside his body cavities they must have already been thoroughly searched by TSA when he went through security. Any unusual looking device is almost pounced on these days by airport security ...

[1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10078835/Passenger-...

[2] https://www.diyphotography.net/vintage-camera-sparks-in-flig...

gumby• 5 years ago

And someone thinking about making a bomb would be looking at ideas while flying?

type0• 5 years ago

My guess would be twin-lens reflex like a usual Rolleiflex or Seagull 4, but could be anything really.

justshowpost• 5 years ago

Holy.

Not even one person considered talking to this man first. If he really had a bomb you’d be dead either way. Why has humanity invented language? Just to not use it? Instead emergency land, evacuate, police until finally someone talks to him?

People are so scared nowadays. In a few years wearing the wrong shoes gets you imprisoned before anyone even talks to you.

Poor guy!

perl4ever2• 5 years ago

In a few years wearing the wrong shoes

The wrong shoes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_Reid%27s_Shoes.jp...

chromatin• 5 years ago

What a train wreck and an epic failure on the part of the flight crew.

I hope this guy gets paid. The moron who flipped out thinking the guy in her aisle was literally looking up bomb making instructions /in flight/ should be civilly liable to the airline and other passengers.

By all means, let’s all disengage critical thinking skills and give equal weight to everyone’s opinion and see where that takes society.

I’ll be fascinated to know just how vintage the camera was and whether it was twin reflex, bellows style, etc.

RattleyCooper• 5 years ago

I just don't understand how someone genuinely believed a picture of a vintage camera was a picture of a bomb...

daveslash• 5 years ago

Don't you know?!: exposed mechanical or electrical parts of anything on a plane == bomb! (/sarcasm). Snark aside... the closest thing that I can think of might be something similar to a Kodak Brownie [1]. Still a far cry from a bomb, but the closest thing that I can think of....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownie_(camera)

_thejrk• 5 years ago

What a shit show. I feel bad for the guy. Does anyone else remember that reddit post a few days ago were OP took a pic of a guy working on his speakers and accused him of building a bomb on a flight? Both situations could have been defused(yep) with a simple conversation or by just minding your own business.

perl4ever2• 5 years ago

a guy working on his speakers

I read that as "sneakers" and was like "well yeah".

And then I realized it was "speakers" and that it was twenty years ago when the shoe bomber was arrested.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Reid

mrunkel• 5 years ago

My question is. Even after all this nonsense, why did it take several hours of questioning before releasing the man with the camera?

rasz• 5 years ago

They tried to find another angle on the dude. "It wasnt a bomb, but we found (trace amounts of) drugs on him, we thank our vigilante crew members for watching over plane safety!!1"

nanis3• 5 years ago

Yeah, once the plane has been diverted, everyone has been evacuated etc, the incentive to find something "bad" he might have done to justify the disruption & the expense is serious.

Will this cause anyone to critically examine the actions of the passenger, the flight crew, and JTTF?

Likely not.

Because once person A points a finger in the direction of person B, everyone's incentive is to make sure they are not the one who allowed the "terrorist" to go free.

Easily avoidable false positives like this are security failures. They slowly erode trust instead of allowing a literal big bang demonstration of the failure and therefore they are insidious.

Man’s Vintage Camera Mistaken for Bomb, Causes Emergency Landing

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