Woman reveals she rumbled 'plane bomb plot' after spotting suspicious name on hotspot

A woman explained how she spotted a 'bomb plot' as a passenger on board a plane that was delayed for hours after passengers were escorted back to security.

The American Airlines flight was headed for Charlotte, North Carolina, from Austin, Texas, in the US on Friday (7 February).

Flight AA2863 was boarded by authorities though, after someone decided that it'd be a bright idea to play a prank by including the word 'bomb' in their hotspot name.

While passengers have shared their accounts on social media, one made a TikTok video explaining her side of events, claiming that she reported it in the first place.

Kendra Moore, better known online as kennnomo, made an eight-minute video explaining her perspective of events, which garnered over 1.5 million views.

She claimed that some articles didn't 'have very accurate information', claiming that she was the one that saw the controversial hotspot name.

Kendra was sat in her seat with her service dog, Bagel, finishing some work while after trying to connect to her hotspot.

Checking that it was connected, she says she noticed a different hotspot named 'Bomb on flight AA2863', which was the number of the flight that she was on.

Previous accounts of the incident reported the name being 'I have a bomb', View from the Wing reports, while another passenger told ABC News that it was 'There is a bomb on the flight'.

"I kind of froze, my face went white," Kendra recalled, saying it took 'half a second' to decide it was worth missing her connecting flight for the safety of those onboard.

After telling the two passengers next to her, one of them took the laptop and alerted the cabin crew, who were on the phone to the captain, who alerted authorities.

She took a photo of it on her laptop and screenshotted the name on her phone, even screenshotting the Wi-Fi address of the hotspot in case it helps.

Though as she explained: "It did say it was a rotating Wi-Fi address, which I do believe means that it changes periodically and does make it harder to track."

Before long, luggage was being pulled off the plane and police were onboard, as Kendra recalled: "One of the cops said, 'I'm gonna tell you guys exactly what happened and give any of you the opportunity to come forward'.

"He said, 'there was a hotspot named bomb on Flight AA2863, if this is a joke, I can handle a joke. We can talk about a joke. "We can get through something if this is a joke. But if it's not, there's gonna be more serious consequences'."

But instead, she says nobody came forward, and everyone's devices and WiFi addresses were checked, row by row.

"Once they had checked, you were told to get off of the plane, to leave all of your belongings where they were." she said.

Kendra says that passengers were then escorted back outside security at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, while she and the two guys next to her were interviewed as they spotted the hotspot name.

According to Metro, passengers were made to show their hotspots to the police, with the Transportation Safety Adminstration (TSA) saying: "All passengers and their checked baggage were rescreened."

After getting their fingers swabbed and coming through security, they could go back to the gate to wait for further instruction.

She added: "From there, they did bring the canine dogs on to sniff the whole plane and the luggage on the outside."

The flight was scheduled to depart at 1:42pm to land in North Carolina at 5:23pm, but would only leave the airport at 6:15pm, ABC News reports.

However, Kendra claimed that some people didn't feel safe and refused to get back on the plane, so 'half of the plane' was full when they did finally take off.

"I believe everybody was very happy with the way American Airlines handled the situation, we all felt very safe," she said.

A spokesperson for Austin-Bergstrom International Airport told DailyMail.com: "Austin Police Department (APD) and the Department of Aviation were alerted by airline crew to suspicious activity on a departing aircraft regarding the name of a WiFi hotspot involving the word 'bomb'."

"The aircraft returned to the gate to allow APD to sweep the aircraft and luggage for explosives. All passengers were deplaned and re-screened by the Transportation Security Administration prior to being allowed to board again," they confirmed.

"The aircraft was cleared by APD around 4:40 p.m., and all passengers were successfully re-screened around 5 p.m. The flight departed around 6:15 p.m.

"The incident did not cause significant impacts to airport operations other than the response and it did not affect airline operations other than the flight that was held back. The flight was an American Airlines flight."

LADbible Group has contacted American Airlines for further comment.