A technology journalist who recently published a column for USA Today claiming to be the victim of a computer intrusion during a recent American Airlines flight was likely not hacked because of a security flaw or lapse involving the plane’s on-board wireless Internet service, according to a person familiar with the technology.

Additionally, questions have been raised about the integrity of Steven Petrow’s column following a phone interview in which the writer offered conflicting accounts about his and a colleague’s interactions with an alleged passenger who purportedly confessed to compromising e-mail accounts during the flight.

In the column published on Wednesday, Petrow described how a passenger approached him at the end of an American Airlines flight from Dallas to Raleigh last Friday. The passenger, Petrow said, claimed to have intimate knowledge about a number of e-mail messages the writer sent to news sources for a column on recent litigation between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the technology company Apple.

“I hacked into your e-mail on the plane and read everything you sent and received,” the passenger said according to Petrow. “I did it to most people on the flight.”

The passenger said he was able to do this by compromising the in-flight wireless Internet service used on the plane, according to Petrow. The writer identified the service as GoGo, a company that offers Internet service on behalf of American Airlines.

Petrow used the story as a backdrop for his column in which he argued in support of Apple in the tech company’s recent high-profile litigation with the FBI and other federal agencies over security mechanisms on a cellphone allegedly used by a terrorism suspect. In that case, federal authorities are requesting Apple create software that would allow agents to circumvent security features on the phone, allowing examiners to extract data that could offer insights into last December’s shooting spree in San Bernardino, California.

Petrow said his experience on board the plane and with the alleged hacker showed how dangerous it would be for tech companies to create so-called “back doors” for government agencies because it could compromise the security of consumers.

“For me, I felt as though the stranger on the plane had robbed me of my privacy — as was explicitly his intent,” Petrow wrote. “He took the decision of what to share out of my hands. He went in through the back door of the GoGo connection.”

In a phone interview on Thursday, Petrow said the hacker had downloaded “an Android app that allow you to hack in” and was “really eager to play with it.”

“He started to use (hack) using the GoGo service,” Petrow said in the recorded phone call. “He kind of hunted around, and then he got really interested in my e-mail.”

Steve Nolan, a spokesperson for GoGo, acknowledged in a phone call that their service operates on an open network — meaning any passenger is free to join if they choose. And just like coffee houses and other places that offer open networks, customers can fall victim to computer intrusions if they don’t use basic privacy and security measures, Nolan said.

But people at GoGo are questioning whether Petrow and other passengers were compromised in the way the writer described. A GoGo employee with technical familiarity of the service said GoGo blocks peer-to-peer connections over wireless access points.

Excerpt from Steven Petrov’s phone interview for this story.

In a follow-up story published on Friday, USA Today technology reporter Elizabeth Weise identified the alleged hacker as Haydn “Fats” Thomas, a felon who was recently convicted on drug charges. On Thursday, Petrow claimed that Thomas told Weise about how he had compromised passengers on board the plane using an Android app. But those details appeared nowhere in Weise’s story; instead, the reporter said Thomas offered the paper “no comment” when reached by phone.

Petrow wouldn’t identify the hacker by name during Thursday’s phone interview, saying “for reasons of my own, we’re not going to use his name in this.” When asked later in the interview if the hacker was Thomas, Petrow chuckled and said, “where [did] you come up with this name?”

The name actually appeared in Petrow’s own column published early Wednesday afternoon. “He’s a felon,” Petrow wrote, “and he read every e-mail I sent and received on that flight.”

Petrow’s original column still exists on websites operated by Gannett, the parent company of USA Today. But a different version appears on the USA Today website — one edited at 11:03 p.m. Eastern Time — in which the last two lines of Petrow’s original column were removed. The deleted information included references to Thomas as the alleged hacker in Petrow’s version of events. The second version of Petrow’s story did not contain an editor’s note explaining why that information had been deleted.

Rhonda Shearer, the editor-in-chief of the media watchdog site iMediaEthics, says deleting information from the column without affixing a note is a problem because “it gives the appearance, if not the reality, that they’re trying to hide something.”

“That never inspires confidence in readers,” Shearer said in an phone interview. “Especially when there’s scrutiny.”

Those who are scrutinizing the details of Petrow’s account include employees at GoGo. Many there don’t believe Petrow was compromised in the way he claimed and are doubtful about some of the allegations made in the piece.

One week after the flight and more than 48 hours after Petrow’s column was first published, no law enforcement officials have contacted GoGo to inquire or investigate the alleged hacking, the company’s spokesperson said.

Additionally, law enforcement officials who were contacted for this story said they had no information about an alleged hacking incident aboard a Raleigh-bound aircraft within the last week. Jim Sughrue, the spokesman for the Raleigh Police Department, said a hacking incident like the one described by Petrow hadn’t come to his attention. Shelly Lynch, the public affairs spokeswoman for Charlotte field office of the FBI, said she had “no direct knowledge” of Petrow’s claims.

One reason might be because Petrow never contacted police in the week between his flight and the publication of his story. On Thursday, Petrow admitted he didn’t reach out to law enforcement after learning other passengers might have been the victim of a computer intrusion because he was tired after his flight — “it actually didn’t cross my mind at that point,” he said. When asked why he didn’t contact police for his story, the technology writer said he wasn’t sure the hacker had committed a crime.

“I’ve reached out to a couple of people at the ACLU and elsewhere to try to determine whether it is a crime to do what this fellow did,” Petrow said. “Nobody has been able to tell me with certainty that it is.”

When pressed again as to why he didn’t contact police after learning other passengers on the plane might have been victimized, Petrow grew quiet. He said he was thinking. He then excused himself from the call to attend to his dog with a promise to call back in a few minutes. He never did.

Brent Jones, the public editor for USA Today, referred questions about Petrow’s column to Chrissy Terrell. Terrell, an executive with Gannett’s public relations team, did not return multiple e-mails and phone calls seeking comment about the story.

Weise also did not return multiple messages seeking comments about her involvement in Petrow’s story. And Petrow has not responded to follow-up messages seeking additional comments and clarifications about the claims he made in his column and the statements he gave on the phone Thursday.