Prankster Changes SSID Of Smartphone To Galaxy Note 7, Flight Nearly Diverted

There are places for pranks and jokes and there there are places where you don't want to joke. A passenger on Virgin America flight 358 from San Francisco to Boston found this out the hard way after he changed the SSID of his wireless device to Samsung Galaxy Note7_1097 during the flight. The passenger was apparently using his smartphone and a hotspot during the flight.

Galaxy Note 7 devices have had a well publicised issue with catching fire during charging and have been recalled twice. The smartphones have been banned from being carried on domestic flights by the DOT. At some point in the flight the SSID was noticed by passengers and crew aboard the flight and a call went out over the aircraft PA system asking for any passenger with a Note 7 on board to press their call button.

No press came. After no one came forward, the pilot made another announcement stating, "This isn't a joke. We're going to turn on the lights (it's 11pm) and search everyone's bag until we find it."

The captain then stated over the intercom, "This is the captain speaking. Apparently the plane is going to have to get diverted and searched if nobody fesses up soon."

Eventually the person owning the device with the offending SSID came forward and explained that there was no Galaxy Note 7 and the SSID had simply been changed. The crew announced after the owner came forward, "Ladies and gentlemen, we found the device. Luckily only the name of the device was changed to 'Galaxy Note 7'. It was not a GN7." There was no further action reportedly taken against the passenger with the prankish SSID according to reports.

SOURCE: BBC