MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Key passenger tells his version of bomb threat aboard Aerolíneas Argentinas flight

A fellow traveler apparetly from Brazil told flight attendants Coto was carrying a bomb, which caused the emergency landing and police deployment

X user Agustín Coto, arguably the main character in the Aerolíneas Argentinas flight AR 1883 bomb threat saga, posted his version of the events on his social media account, which shed some additional light onto the events surrounding Sunday's service between Ushuaia and Buenos Aires, which already got additional notoriety for carrying celebrities Carmen Barbieri and Marcelo Polino as passengers.

 “Today something surreal happened to me,” wrote Coto. “Airline flight Ushuaia-Buenos Aires, Seat 24 C. Full plane,” he added in a lengthy entry. “We took off and the guy who was sitting next to me, in the middle of takeoff, gets up and runs to the back. He comes back, sits down again, stands up again and goes to the back of the plane. I had never seen anything like that,” he elaborated. ”A few minutes go by and the captain announces that we had to return to Ushuaia airport, without clarifying the reason (later everything would make sense),“ Coto also posted.

”We returned, landed and... waited on the runway. The strange guy was still behind us, with the flight attendants,” the author, who describes himself as an historian and a Tierra del Fuego lawmaker representing the local branch of President Javier Milei's La Libertad Avanza (LLA). further described. “Looking at the phone, I found out that the plane had turned back due to a bomb threat! Between scared and nervous, I waited a while longer, chatting with the other passengers.”

Then “airport security police arrived a few minutes later and took away a guy who turned out to be ME!,” he wrote in disbelief. “Operative, security protocols activated, explosive detection dog, etcetera. All ok. False alarm,” he noted.

“They detain me, I ask why and they tell me that my seat neighbor accused me of carrying a bomb! Surreal,” Coto insisted.

”Statements, waiting, nerves, laughter. The flight finally leaves, the Brazilian tourist inventor of bombistic (and bombastic) situations is not allowed to board the plane and we take off without any inconvenience around 8 pm,“ the author further told his followers.

”Ah. I was in all the media, they tell me,” he also reckoned in shock.

In Coto's view, the moral of the story was: Aavoid traveling in airplanes sitting next to weirdos.