BBC has reported that a Virgin flight has been disrupted almost to the point of getting diverted after a purported Note 7 device surfaced via Wi-Fi hotspot while it is midair. This was immediately disputed by the airline company, stressing that no delay or cancellation transpired.
The Note 7 Backstory
The BBC story relied on the details provided by one of the passengers of the Virgin America flight 358. The source was identified as Lucas Wojciechowski, who has provided a blow-by-blow account of the incident in a flurry of Twitter posts.
Passengers seemed to have been alarmed when they noticed that a "Samsung Galaxy Note7_1097" Wi-Fi hotspot popped up when they opened their devices' network connections. Wojciechowski himself was able to take a photograph of it.
Open my laptop on the plane and notice a Galaxy Note 7 wifi hotspot https://t.co/y1csn9gOsZ pic.twitter.com/9Z5IJULuPs
— Lucas Wojciechowski (@lucaswoj) December 20, 2016
The crew immediately got wind of the matter and began paging for the owner of the device. When no one came forward, the announcements got a more serious tone.
"This isn't a joke. We're going to turn on the lights (it's 11 p.m.) and search everyone's bag until we find it," Wojciechowski recounted. "This is the captain speaking. Apparently the plane is going to have to get diverted and searched if nobody fesses up soon."
This is the point when the passenger allegedly came forward claiming that he merely changed the Wi-Fi hotspot's name and that the phone was not really a Galaxy Note 7.
Wojciechowski's story, which did not include the fate of the troll, has been corroborated by other sources. BBC, for instance, was able to track a passenger of a separate flight that got delayed due to the Virgin 358 incident.
Virgin Statement
Virgin America categorically denied any delay or cancellations, issuing a statement to TechnoBuffalo underscoring how it takes the security of its passengers and crew seriously. The airline reiterated that no Note 7 was ever onboard, and safety was never in question.
One should remember that the Galaxy Note 7 is already prohibited by the U.S. Department of Transportation onboard planes. There are already incidents wherein the device owned by passengers had caught fire.
Samsung is also aggressively pursuing a recall strategy in efforts to prevent more exploding Note 7s. A recent report revealed that usage of the device is still higher than the figures posted by the LG V20 and OnePlus 3T.
