An AirDrop mistake resulted in a big mix-up this weekend as a flight bound for Hawaii was grounded for 90 minutes.

Hawaiian Airlines flight 23 was taxiing just before taking off from Oakland for Maui this weekend when at least fifteen passengers randomly received a photo. The image appeared to show the crime scene of a dead child. As reported by BuzzFeed, the alarmed passengers shared the photo with the flight crew and when the pilots were made aware, they returned the plane to the gate.

Embarrassingly, the whole situation was caused by an AirDrop accident by a 15-year-old high school student. She was trying to share a photo with her mother of a mock crime scene (seen below) which was from her medical-biology class. It included a mannequin lying face down with evidence markers, which the passengers confused for a dead child.

While it may be hard to imagine how the teen accidentally sent the photo via AirDrop to so many people, it sounds like the girl was confused about the name of her mom’s iPhone that appeared in AirDrop, and must have tried the majority of the iOS devices that showed up.

Alameda County Sgt. Ray Kelly shared:

“She was telling her mom about the class, and her mom supposedly just got a new iPhone,” Kelly said. “People were a little alarmed by it.” […] He added that the girl was “very embarrassed” and “she was actually crying, so we had to console her a little bit — it was OK, it was a mistake.”

After being questioned, the teen and her mother weren’t able to make it on the flight, but were rebooked for the following day. After the 90-minute delay, flight 23 did make it to Maui, but only after a container of pepper spray exploded en route, what a trip!

If you want to double-check your receiving settings for AirDrop, head to Settings → General → AirDrop.

Image via Go Hawaii Tours

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