23-year-old Student Accused of Calling in Fake Airplane Bomb Threat to Keep Parents From Visiting

Dirty dishes are piled in the sink. Cockroaches are climbing the walls. Nefarious smells are drifting out from under your roommate’s door. You know your parents would be appalled at the way you’re living, so you... call in a bomb threat and delay their plane?

Earlier this week, a 23-year-old French student was charged with calling in a fake bomb threat. According to the public prosecutor on the case, his motivation was to stop his parents from visiting him.

His parents were on board an easyJet flight from Lyon to Rennes in France on Jan. 18. Shortly after takeoff, the plane, which was carrying 159 passengers, was forced to turn around and land back in Lyon.

At the airport, a fire brigade met the plane. Passengers disembarked as police searched the aircraft for the bomb. None was found.

“The safety and wellbeing of our passengers and crew is easyJet’s highest priority,” the airline said in a statement.

The passengers were able to take off later that day on a different plane.

“The person behind the act has been identified,” the public prosecutor of Rennes said in a statement this week. “It was a 23-year-old student who did not wish his parents, who were aboard the plane, to join him in Rennes.”

The student will appear in criminal court in May, where he could face five years in prison and an $85,000 (€75,000) fine if found guilty.