Passengers who were traveling home from a hacking conference in Las Vegas allegedly jammed the official Wi-Fi signal on a Delta Air Lines flight to Atlanta Hartsfield and then broadcast a ‘scam’ internet login.
The alleged incident happened on Delta flight DL-591, which departed Las Vegas Harry Reid Airport at around 8:30 am on Monday, after being delayed overnight from Sunday. During the three-and-a-half-hour flight to Atlanta, passengers who had reportedly been attending the Def Con 34 hacking conference in Las Vegas managed to broadcast a ‘scam’ Wi-Fi network to other passengers.
The allegations of the Wi-Fi hijacking were communicated to Delta’s operations center in Atlanta by the pilots of flight 591 via the cockpit’s ACARS messaging system – the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, which allows pilots to send and receive text messages when satellite telephony isn’t available.
One of the ACARS messages sent by the pilots and intercepted by the Flight Deck app read:
"WE HAVE A BUNCH OF PAX [passengers] THAT WERE AT A CYBER CONFERENCE IN LAS VEGAS. THE[Y] (sic) WERE ABLE TO JAM OUR WIFI AND BRODCAST (sic) THERE (sic) SIGNAL."
In a second message, the pilots then wrote:
"HEY, ALERT CORP[ORATE] SECURITY. WE HAVE A PAX ON THAT HAS CREATED A SCAM WIFI CALLED DELTA WIFI FAST. WE BELIEVE THEY ARE TRYING TO SCAM OTH[ER] PAX."
On arrival in Atlanta, law enforcement reportedly boarded the aircraft and questioned several passengers, although it remains unclear whether anyone was arrested.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Delta told us: “Safety of flight was never in question and no aircraft operating systems were affected. We are fully investigating to gather a complete set of facts, which will take time.”
The statement added: “We will partner with federal law enforcement and aviation regulators to ensure the incident is thoroughly investigated. We thank our crew for their professionalism and our customers for their understanding.”
The airline insists that there wasn’t an actual hack of the Delta Wi-Fi system, but that the in-flight Wi-Fi was switched off for around 30 minutes during the flight by the crew as they investigated what was going on.
The type of cybercrime that allegedly occurred on this flight is known as an ‘evil twin’ attack, in which hackers create a fake Wi-Fi network that has a login page designed to closely resemble the official internet portal that passengers would normally use to access in-flight Wi-Fi.
Hackers then steal email addresses and other personal credentials, including, potentially, credit card information.
This isn’t the first recorded incident of this nature on a commercial jetliner. In 2024, Australian police arrested 42-year-old Michael Clapsis for exactly this alleged offence. The Australian Federal Police accused Clapsis of using a portable wireless access device to mimic the legitimate onboard Wi-Fi service during a domestic flight operated by Qantas.
Clapsis was arrested after a flight attendant became suspicious and reported their concerns to the airline. He was ultimately sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment after police unearthed a much larger criminal operation.
More than a decade ago, in 2015, United Airlines passenger Chris Roberts was accused of hacking into the plane’s in-flight entertainment system, with the FBI claiming that this gave him access to the flight control systems.
Roberts didn’t actually use the onboard Wi-Fi, though, instead connecting an ethernet cable into the underseat box that controls the in-flight entertainment system.
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