Camera Buff's Tinkering Prompted LaGuardia Bomb Scare: Report

New York City NY

11 October, 2021

11:52 AM

Description

NEW YORK CITY — A vintage camera buff who used his Saturday flight to New York City to indulge his hobby found himself the subject of a nosy neighbor's paranoid attention. The neighbor — a woman traveling with her family — mistakenly thought the man was setting a detonator on a bomb as he tinkered with a camera, according to a report. The subsequent — and wholly unfounded — bomb scare prompted the American Airlines flight's emergency landing at LaGuardia Airport, the New York Daily News first reported. Passengers on the Indianapolis to New York City flight tweeted the tense scene on the tarmac — a man on the ground, arms spread as firefighters hover over him. Authorities finally sorted out the truth, but only after the camera buff was in custody for several hours, the Daily News reported. What happened was the man perused camera blueprints on the plane, unwittingly sparking fear from a woman behind him who believed they were bomb making instructions, the Daily News reported. When the man took out his own camera to adjust it, the woman fearfully thought he had set a detonator, according to the report. The man was released and cleared of any wrongdoing, according to the report. Read the full New York Daily News report here.