This story originally appeared in the New York Post:
An Israel-bound flight from Cyprus was delayed after a doll — and a malapropism — triggered a bomb scare.
A cleaner aboard the Aegean Airlines plane on Tuesday found a box bearing a label with the word “booba” – the Hebrew word for ‘doll,’ written in English.
But the worker mistook it for “bomba” — which means bomb in Greek– and sounded the alarm.
Police at the Larnaca airport searched the aircraft, which was then allowed to depart for Tel Aviv.
“Cyprus’ civil aviation authority checked it and there was no problem. There was a small delay, but the alarm was lifted immediately,” an Aegean Airlines spokeswoman told Reuters.
In January, a group of Israeli passengers forced Aegean Airlines to remove two Arab co-nationalists off a flight from Athens to Tel Aviv out of fear that the pair could be terrorists, the Times of Israel reported.