Seat partners on flights are known to be a little nosy, but one passenger noticed her seatmate working through a math problem on a piece of paper and mistook it as a sign of terrorism, causing a two-hour delay.
An Ivy League professor aboard an American Airlines flight went into questioning under suspicion of being a terrorist, after the passenger alerted airline attendants she saw what looked like Arabic or a cryptic code.
American Airlines confirmed the allegations were not credible.
Guido Menzio, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania, was simply working through a differential equation before he was escorted off the plane. He was on his way to present his work at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada.
The passenger, a 30-year-old woman, at first only told the flight attendant she was too sick to fly on the Air-Wisconsin operated flight. The plane returned to the gate, and that's when she informed airport employees of her concerns.
"I thought they were trying to get clues about her illness,” Menzio told The Associated Press. “Instead, they tell me that the woman was concerned that I was a terrorist because I was writing strange things on a pad of paper.”
The situation was resolved and Menzio returned to his seat.
"Not seeking additional information after reports of 'suspicious activity' ... is going to create a lot of problems, especially as xenophobic attitudes may be emerging," Menzio told The Associated Press.
