Passenger With Vintage Cameras Mistaken For 'Bomber,' 'Security Incident' Forces Emergency Landing

The man who was suspected to be a "bomber" in the LaGuardia emergency landing incident on Saturday, Oct. 9, turned out to be nothing more than a vintage camera owner, in a strange case of mistaken identity.

A Republic Airways flight was forced to be grounded in LaGuardia Airport in New York City after a woman mistakenly assumed that a man holding and operating a vintage camera inflight was harboring an explosive device instead, according to the New York Daily News.

The man was reportedly scrolling through pictures of antique cameras when the woman assumed that he was looking up instructions to make a bomb—and panicked when she saw him operating the timer in his own vintage camera.

After the “suspicious and erratic behavior” was reported, the plane was forced to make an emergency landing in LaGuardia airport, causing mass confusion and multiple injuries in the panicked passengers of the plane, according to ABC 7.

“Some people were yelling, ‘bomb.’ Some people were yelling, ‘fire.’ It's very unclear what's happening. Most people were just saying, ‘Run. Go,’” Abigail Kunkle, a passenger on the flight said.

People reportedly overreacted as they attempted to leave the plane, causing multiple bleeding injuries from when passengers of the flight fell down and injured themselves as hysteria set in.

“Everyone was just shoving and pushing, jumping out of the airplane [after landing]. They lost the slide, people were falling off the slide left and right. People were bleeding. It was crazy,” passenger Sawad Khuja said.

Port Authority officers held the unidentified man, a vintage camera collector, for hours before finally clearing him of wrongdoing. He was found to have two checked bags including a skateboard and vintage cameras in his bag.

“The JTTF [Joint Terrorism Task Force], the FBI, and the Port Authority Police Department determined that there was no criminality on the part of the passenger and he was released,” Tom Topousis, Port Authority spokesman, said.