A Copa Airlines flight to Florida was ordered to return to Panama City when a suspected bomb was reported in the airplane bathroom – only for the suspicious object to be revealed as an adult diaper, Panama’s National Police revealed on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday.
About an hour after taking off from Tocumen International Airport headed for Tampa at 9:36 local time, the flight was ordered back to Panama. After landing, it was moved to an isolated area of the tarmac and emptied of its 144 passengers.
Explosives teams searched the plane for the “suspicious object,” only to find an adult diaper wrapped in a black plastic bag was responsible for the trouble.
“We had it on a secure runway where police special explosives canine units and special forces examined the object, and found it to be an adult diaper, ruling out any risk,” Jose Castro, head of the airport security team with Panama’s Civil Aeronautics Authority, wrote in a post on X.
Authorities subsequently ruled out any kind of threat, Copa Airlines said in a statement. Passengers then re-boarded the same airplane, which took off again around 2pm and landed in Florida without further incident at 6:54pm local time, Tampa International Airport’s communications manager confirmed.